It all came very suddenly.
I couldn’t wait to rent a room on May 31 to start my job, but just after I paid the rent, I was told by HR that they didn’t want me. Wu Na, who was disappointed, sighed to Shenhua that the job search was like a joke, the job was gone and she couldn’t get her rent back.
What makes Wu Na even more angry is that Highway Classroom has been blocking the news. Many of her classmates who had attended the school recruiting seminar with her had also gotten offers, but on June 1, after they saw the news and asked HR about it, they realized that they couldn’t join the company on time, and no one had informed them about it before. Some other students had their three-party agreements sent to Highways, but never signed them, leaving them in a dilemma.
The online education company that broke the contract and postponed the contract is also Ape Coaching. According to the deep fire understanding, the delayed extension, temporary changes, cancellation of employment, involving full-time, internship and part-time summer jobs, etc., affected at least hundreds of people, distributed in Nanjing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and other cities with a number of online education companies tutor base.
In contrast to the broken contracts and extensions, the “layoff tide” has become the absolute keyword in the online education industry recently. This is a far cry from the massive recruitment scene a month or two ago. During the spring recruitment, major online education companies opened as many as tens of thousands of positions nationwide and used high salaries and other welfare policies to attract talent.
In just a few months, online education companies have been on fire and on ice, with industry regulations tightening and turmoil following round after round. After the adoption of the “double reduction” opinion in late May, the “three no’s” rumors, the “two no’s” and the “three no’s” were all over the place. “On June 1, the new Protection of Minors Law came into effect, and the State Administration of Market Supervision (SAMS) announced that 15 out-of-school training institutions had been prosecuted for false advertising and price fraud. The new version of the Law on the Protection of Minors came into effect on June 1, and at the same time, the State Administration of Market Supervision announced the imposition of top fines on 15 out-of-school training institutions for false advertising and price fraud, respectively, making the relevant regulations in the Advertising Law and the Law against Unfair Competition start to be taken seriously by the industry.
Now, the top players have begun laying off staff to “break their arms for survival,” and the first to be affected are the front-line staff, with 100,000 tutors bearing the brunt. But the pain in online education will continue, with no policy on the “double reduction” opinion rules, whether thinking classes for under-6-year-olds will be controlled, or whether the “double reduction” opinion rules will be applied. The question of whether or not they can go public after the “ban on random capitalization” is still open. The storm is far from over.
1
Just graduated and became a “victim”
“Angry! This is the psychological description of countless college students who have been affected.
“Suddenly I was told that the start-up was tentatively postponed until September, and they actually said ‘tentatively’ to a fresh graduate who was eager to work! “Liu Guang, who is in Chengdu, was very indignant after receiving the notice of the postponement of ape coaching onboarding. “I may need to find a new job, I did not expect to become a victim just after graduation. “
Liu Guang and many college students who have been postponed and broken contracts formed a rights group, the number of people in the group continues to increase, but they know in their hearts, although the group is called the rights group, but as an emotional outlet is much more meaningful than the real rights, the loss can only be borne by themselves.
The ape coaching staff interviewed by Zinniu News said that due to business changes, the corresponding positions have been adjusted, indeed postponed part of the offer, however, the company’s human resources department set up an emergency special processing channel, in one by one communication.
The company’s human resources department has set up a special channel to deal with the situation on an emergency basis. “She was informed that the position was full, so she could either train and work immediately or wait until the fall to start again. Because the two sides have signed a three-party agreement, after several rounds of communication, the other side finally agreed to let Ma Jing first online contract, and then start after the defense.
It is noteworthy that in this batch of contract extension tide, the most affected group is the tutor. The previous “sea of people war”, these companies in order to mass absorption of tutors, often to the position to provide higher than the average local salary.
Ma Jing in Nanjing found that online education companies in the local tutors to provide the salary, than she interviewed many new media jobs treatment is quite high. The direct reason she decisively gave up a new media job that was a better fit with her major was that the salary at Xuezhi Online School was 50% higher. “I just want to make some quick money, and later I do plan to go to graduate school. “
The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. The job announcement for Xuezhi Online School states that tutors can earn an annual salary of 80,000 to 120,000 and are offered the opportunity for promotion twice a year.
Wu Na and Liu Guang were also attracted by the high salary of the online education industry, but they didn’t expect that the industry would have less “fast money” to earn before they entered the industry.
While a large number of freshmen and summer interns are in deep trouble, layoffs continue within online education companies.
According to an employee at High Way, on May 27, at a town hall meeting for the Little Early Start program, High Way announced that according to Article 33 of the new Protection of Minors Law: “Kindergartens and out-of-school training institutions shall not educate preschool-age minors in elementary school curriculum. “, the company will no longer market, sell or deliver language, math and English products to children between the ages of 3 and 6. This means that more than 1,000 employees in the Little Early Head Start team will be laid off one by one.
Before the internal meeting made it clear that the entire program would be cut, our department leaders made it clear that the program might be cut and that we should plan ahead and either seek internal water or prepare resumes to find new jobs. ” said Chen Ming, an employee who was laid off in the highway classroom small morning initiation program, “but internal living water, there are few suitable positions, most of them can only find a new job. “
At the same time, a number of head online education companies have been rumored to stop open recruitment for some positions in June, and even ByteDance has been rumored to be about to make extensive structural adjustments to its education business. On Pulse, a number of users whose companies are certified as homework helpers have posted that homework helpers have started laying off staff.
The online education industry has hardly given these practitioners a sense of security anymore. After this twist and turn, Ma Jing still feels uneasy and even wants to “run away” from the online education industry, but because three parties have signed the contract, Ma Jing has to accept the current The program.
I’m not going into this business (online education) anymore! ” Li Yin said firmly on June 1 after she received a one-month extension of her summer internship offer from Highways. She originally thought that entering a large company was firstly stable and secondly profitable, but she did not expect that the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, and as an intern herself, it was difficult to defend her rights, not to mention that the cost of renting an apartment could only be borne by herself.
The anxiety is spreading, regardless of whether the bad news to their own body, the entire industry practitioners are beginning to fidget. Many employees of online education companies are lurking on platforms such as Pulse, trying to find out the latest trends of layoffs in the industry and their own companies, just hoping that when the butcher’s knife of layoffs really falls on their heads, they will try to make themselves less panicked.
2
The “sea of people” war comes to an end
Before this wave of layoffs came, the “human war” of online education companies was still in full swing.
The 2020 epidemic has brought online education to an unprecedented high point. Both financing and user numbers have exploded, which has accelerated the pace of expansion of online education companies in terms of staff size.
According to public information, just in 2020, the staff size of Saru tutoring has exceeded 40,000; the staff size of vigorous education under Byte Jump has exceeded 10,000 after two years of officially entering the education industry; as of March 2021, the staff size of homework help has reached 35,000.
Behind the rapid growth of the number of employees is the higher and higher recruitment quota of employees by major online education companies.
As early as the spring recruitment in 2020, a tutor of 1,000 people can be said to be the minimum line for the recruitment of mainstream online large classroom brands. Good Future has said that the amount of tutors hired in the spring of 2020 is more than 10 times that of the previous year.
This year’s spring recruitment, the major online education companies continue to grab people war. Homework help launched a “million teachers plan”, byte jump’s vigorous education announced at the end of February, will be recruited in the next four months 10,000 people. This means that after only three years in education, the size of Byte Jump’s education line will reach 20,000 employees.
Originally, in the public perception, online education is to use technology to improve efficiency, but the fact is that online education companies do not get rid of the nature of “labor-intensive industry”. They are still relying on piles of manpower, and they are even crazier than other Internet companies.
As one of the top players in online education, Ape Coaching, which is expected to reach 10 billion yuan in revenue in 2020, has 40,000 employees; Byte Jump has 100,000 employees in 2020, and the staff of vigorous education, which is not yet profitable, accounts for 1/10 of the total. In contrast, the 2020 annual revenue of 58.8 billion yuan of fast hands, the size of the staff of about 20,000; 2020 revenue of 59.4 billion yuan of Poundland, the size of the staff only about 7,000.
In the “heap of manpower”, the group of tutors has a very large proportion in these companies. In the fall of 2020, the recruitment quota for tutors is around 20,000. If we calculate based on full recruitment, by the end of 2020, tutors account for 50% of the staff size of Ape Coaching. And Gautou has clearly stated on a poster that the size of its tutors has exceeded 15,000.
As a position with conversion and sales nature, tutors originally had a high turnover rate and high mobility, and the high demand also led to a high recruitment volume. Nowadays, the tutor bases of major online education companies have been located in Xi’an, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Jinan and many other cities with rich resources for college students. The school has built tutor bases in 15 cities across the country.
A number of college students told reporters that they can clearly perceive that the demand for tutor positions in online education companies is very large. Some industry sources calculate that the number of tutors in K12 online education institutions alone is close to 100,000.
Like Liu Na and Wu Guang who are running for high salaries, quick money is one of the important factors that attract college students to enter online education companies, but their graduation season caught up with the industry’s layoff tide.
3
Can online education still run?
“Run! In recent days, as long as someone on the pulse asks “Is it worth going to the big online education company? “, the comment section is basically discouraged.
Last year, the four head online education companies, such as Ape Tutor, Good Future, Homework Help, and Who Learn, absorbed more than $10 billion in financing, and online education has become a new high-wage industry in the eyes of many job seekers.
“In the first half of this year, the information flow advertising blocked on the online education business enrollment impact is quite big. “An online education practitioner told reporters. This may be part of the reason why online education companies are breaking contracts and laying off staff.
Unlike the past two summers of enthusiastic preparation, burning money to put, this year before the summer war is coming, each instead of laying off many freshmen, summer intern positions, and suspend recruitment of some positions, “the sea of people war The “human war” has contracted, and cost reduction and efficiency has become a common choice for online education companies.
On May 24, a screenshot circulated in the industry, which mentioned that educational institutions are not allowed to hold classes in the summer has been debunked by the Haidian District Education Commission, but the statement that they are not allowed to invest in advertising or listing, and that all online and offline training before the age of 6 will be banned, is still inconclusive.
The industry is in an unknown state of tension. However, the withdrawal of the High Way Classroom’s Early Head Start program already means that the industry’s low-child track will no longer be a scenery. It’s conceivable that if the industry continues to be uncertain, layoffs at online education companies will continue, with the 100,000 tutors on the front lines of the industry most at risk.
At the request of the interviewer, Wu Na, Liu Guang, Ma Jing, Li Yin and Chen Ming are pseudonyms in this article.
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