I first spotted¹ the Chinese name “Haier” on a fridge in an American store about a decade ago. At the time, this seemed a potent² symbol of global economic change. When I was a child in 1970s Britain, electrical appliances all tended to carry labels saying “made in Japan”, or “made in Korea” (or, on occasion, made in the US, or Germany).

10年前，在美国的一家商店里，我第一次在一台冰箱上看到“海尔”(Haier)这两个字。当时，那似乎是全球经济变革的一个强有力的象征。在上世纪70年代的英国，我还是一个孩子的时候，所有家电的标签上基本都写着“日本制造”或“韩国制造”（偶尔也会标着“美国制造”或“德国制造”）。

Since then China has become famous — or infamous³ — as the factory of the world. The Haier company, whose headquarters are in the city of Qingdao, likes to bill itself as the world’s number-one maker⁴ of white goods. With more than $30bn of revenues, it has ousted⁵ Whirlpool to become the biggest global producer of home appliances. That “made in China” label, in other words, delivered ferocious⁶ success.

从那以后，中国作为世界工厂声名（或者恶名）远扬。总部设在青岛市的海尔公司喜欢标榜自身为世界头号白色家电制造商。海尔集团已超过惠而浦(Whirlpool)，成为全球最大家电制造商。该集团去年全球营业额超300亿美元。换句话说，那枚“中国制造”的标签，取得了巨大成功。

Recently, however, I have learnt that there is a second, more unexpected reason why the Haier name is a potent symbol of economic change. A couple of weeks ago, I met Zhang Ruimin, the company’s charismatic chief executive officer, at a Drucker Forum⁷ debate in Vienna. As he discussed his corporate⁸ strategy, Zhang nonchalantly revealed that the Chinese company had cut its staff by more than 15 per cent in the past couple of years, shedding 10,000 middle managers as well as many ordinary workers.

然而，最近我发现还有更出人意料的第二个原因，表明“海尔”这个名字是经济变革的有力象征。上个月，在维也纳举行的彼得德鲁克全球论坛(Global Peter Drucker Forum)的一场辩论会上，我和海尔公司魅力超凡的首席执行官张瑞敏见面了。在讨论他的企业战略时，张瑞敏语气平淡地透露，在过去几年，海尔裁减了超过15%的员工，其中包括1万名中层经理，还有很多普通工人。

This is not because of faltering⁹ demand for fridges; far from it. Instead, Zhang has been implementing¹⁰ what he likes to call a strategy of “networking” and “zero distance to the consumer”. This essentially¹¹ means using the internet and other technological¹² tools to cut out layers of human bureaucracy and processes at Haier — as well as thousands of jobs.

这并不是因为对冰箱的需求正在衰退；远非如此。相反，张瑞敏一直在实施一个战略，他将其称为“网络化”和“与用户零距离”。这主要是指利用互联网和其他技术工具，削减海尔管理体系和工作流程的层级——以及成千上万的工作岗位。

I dare say some FT readers will shrug¹³ their shoulders at this, given that western companies have been using digital networks to eliminate workers for many years. Whenever I have met executives in the past year, at companies ranging from Rio Tinto to Levi Strauss to Syngenta, they have extolled¹⁴ the benefits of using digitisation to boost “productivity”. Indeed, this trend is now so well entrenched¹⁵ in the western world that analysts¹⁶ at the Oxford¹⁷ Martin business school think 47 per cent of current American jobs could disappear over the next two decades. But the fact that people such as Zhang are now talking about digitisation “efficiencies” in China brings a whole new twist to this trend. After all, the reason those “made in China” labels have become so ubiquitous is that Chinese labour costs have been very low — lower than those of the west.

我敢说，一些英国《金融时报》的读者看到这里会耸耸肩膀，因为西方企业多年来一直在利用数字化网络精简人员。过去一年，从力拓(Rio Tinto)、李维斯(Levi Strauss)到先正达(Syngenta)，每当我遇到企业高管，他们都会盛赞利用数字化提高“生产效率”的好处。事实上，现在这种趋势在西方市场已经根深蒂固，牛津大学马丁学院(Oxford Matin School)的分析人士认为，在接下来20年中，当前美国47%的工作岗位可能消失。但像张瑞敏这样的人现在在中国谈论数字化“效率”，给这股趋势带来了新的转折。毕竟，那些“中国制造”的标签之所以变得随处可见，正是因为中国的劳动力成本一直非常低廉——比西方要低。

The crucial point about digitisation is that not only do robots and barcodes perform many functions more cheaply, efficiently¹⁸ and consistently than American workers, they also undercut the cost of humans in China and India. And this has big implications for the global economy. For one thing, it may make it easier for American and European companies to keep industrial processes in the west, instead of exporting them to China.

数字化的一个关键点是，机器人和条形码不仅以比美国工人更廉价、更高效、更稳定的方式执行许多任务，它们还比中国和印度的人力成本更低。这会对全球经济产生深远影响。一方面，这使美国和欧洲企业更容易把工业生产过程留在西方，而不是输出到中国。

It may also reduce the number of jobs attached to those “made in China/India/Vietnam” labels, which could change how emerging markets develop in the coming years. “Ever since the industrial revolution, manufacturing has been the key to rapid economic growth. But manufacturing today is not what it used to be,” Dani Rodrik, the Harvard economist¹⁹, wrote in a blog some months ago. He fears that the emerging markets are now heading for “premature²⁰ deindustrialisation”. Countries such as India and China can no longer expect to mimic²¹ the UK’s industrial revolution, in which a large chunk²² of the workforce²³ was employed in factories for several decades before the economy matured. Instead, the emerging markets may need to rely on the service sector²⁴ to employ workers.

这还会减少和“中国/印度/越南制造”标签相关联的工作岗位，从而可能改变新兴市场未来数年的发展方式。“自工业革命以后，制造业一直是快速经济增长的关键。但今天的制造业已经和过去不同了，”哈佛(Harvard)经济学家达尼圠德里克(Dani Rodrik)数月前在一篇博客中写道。他担心，新兴市场现在正朝着“过早的去工业化”前进。印度和中国等国无法再期望复制英国的工业革命——在经济成熟以前的几十年中，一大部分劳动力受雇于工厂。相反，新兴市场或许需要依赖服务业来雇佣劳动者。

Even if Rodrik is correct (and not all economists²⁵ agree with him), this scenario²⁶ is not necessarily a disaster. History shows that technology has changed the nature of work before: in the 19th century, for example, the agricultural revolution destroyed millions of farm jobs. But back then new jobs emerged to absorb the workers. And they were in factories.

即使罗德里克是正确的（并非所有经济学家都认同他的观点），这样的景象也并不一定是灾难。历史表明，技术过去也曾改变工作的性质：比如，在19世纪，农业革命摧毁了数百万农场工作。但那时出现了新的工作岗位，吸纳了就业——那些新的工作岗位在工厂里。

Something similar may well happen again. Zhang insists that Haier’s former workers are already adapting to industrial change — finding new internet-linked roles as small-scale entrepreneurs, collaborating²⁷ with Haier or selling services to it. And consultants²⁸ such as McKinsey and PwC think that digitisation could create millions of new jobs in emerging markets over the next couple of decades. Zhang argues that these new jobs offer far more “creativity” and “freedom” for workers — at least compared with the grind of churning out fridges.

类似的事情很可能再次发生。张瑞敏坚称，海尔的前员工已经开始适应行业变革——找到和互联网相关联的新角色，作为小微企业主和海尔合作，或者向海尔提供服务。麦肯锡(McKinsey)和普华永道(PwC)等咨询公司认为，未来几十年，数字化可能在新兴市场创造数百万新工作。张瑞敏认为，这些新工作为劳动者提供多得多的“创意”和“自由”——至少相对于生产冰箱的繁重工作来说是这样的。

Perhaps so. But the flip²⁹ side of digitised worker “freedom” is often insecurity — just look at the heated debate around Uber. Either way, if you spot the Haier label in the shops this holiday season, it is worth remembering the changes now embodied³⁰ in that “made in China” tag. Digitisation is no longer just a western game — even, or especially, with something as humble³¹ as a fridge.

或许如此。但数字化员工的另一面往往是缺乏保障——看看围绕着优步(Uber)展开的激烈辩论就明白了。不管怎样，如果这个假日季你在商店里看到海尔的标志，记住“中国制造”标签现在体现的改变是值得的。数字化不再只是西方的游戏——哪怕只是（或者说尤其是）在冰箱这样不起眼的事物上。