China’s migrant worker exodus has created demand for drone pilots to help ageing left-behind farmers
- Drone piloting an example of new occupations created by explosion of gig economy
- A drone pilot can earn more than a factory worker, with more freedom and flexibility
Zhu Beibei still remembers the acrid stench of rubber tyres even though it has been 10 years since he worked at a small car manufacturer in Wuhan in central China. Then 19, it was his first job out of technical school. He was paid 900 yuan (US$134) a month and there was a lot of overtime. He quit after six months.
“I had to wake up at 2pm and work until at least 10am,” Zhu, now 29, said in an interview. “Every day I worked like a robot and did not have much time to talk with each other. I did not see any chance of promotion or to improve my skills.”
After he left, he bounced around various jobs, including selling farm produce, before a friend asked him if he had ever flown a drone. He had not, but became a certified drone pilot after five days of training and joined a pesticide-spraying drone company.
Today, Zhu has his own company with a team of 30 drone pilots and he pulls in 3 million yuan (US$447,000) a year helping farmers in China spray weed killer.
Not bad for a farmer’s son, whose mother rebuked him for quitting the factory job, which came with retirement benefits. He won her over after earning 80,000 yuan in 45 days working drones in Xinjiang, a major cotton- and fruit-producing region in the country’s northwest.