Supply

In reality, what I found on the notice board was there exists a genuine demand for such a poorly paid job.

Why? Because that’s the actual value of the amount and nature of the work. More importantly, the demand is now met by a corresponding supply – there are people who would agree to take up such a low-pay job (because, in the terminology of Warren Buffett, that’s the worth of their productivity; more commonly, there are other non-monetary gain of these poorly paid jobs – notably the opportunity of having some special training or “getting into the system”).

You may argue, “But, many of the low-pay jobs are the result of capitalist’s exploit !”

Well, that may be true. But we have no way to tell which one represents the fair value and which is deliberately brought down by a malicious boss.

More importantly, exploit does not only exist in workers who are poorly paid; the situation is actually worse amongst the class with a mediocre salary (for example, someone with a hourly productivity of HK$100 but a salary HK$60 per hour).

And we happily turn a blind eye – if not closing both – to them.

PS. The idea of non-monetary gain is not new. I still remember shortly after I became a house officer, one of my classmates told me that the job of intern is hell – because the hourly pay was (in those days) lower than those working in McDonald.

“That may be true,” I replied, “But there’s hardly any other job whose salary would always increase by four times a year later.”