Manufacturing parking meters and selling them in large quantities to the Beijing Government must be a golden business. Better than doing Olympic projects.

Simple. They don’t have to work. Some day they are installed (again some people have a job). Then they are never used. After some time most are vandalized and become modern expressions of art. Some, like ones pictured here, seem to be more sturdy and survive longer – and look better than those other ugly plastic ones.
Those meters are bad for employment. Putting poor parking attendants out of a job? Worse, do you expect the police to monitor if people paid?