#Han Mo (34), a Chinese national, lost his job in February last year while working as an interface designer in Beijing’s information technology ( IT ) industry. Using his 10 years of work experience as a weapon, he submitted his resume to hundreds of companies, but only got interviews at 4. He believes that the reason why he is having trouble getting a job is because of his age .
#” I’m a 38-year-old ex-delivery worker with a master’s degree in philosophy ” Chen Tao, who makes a living as a content creator, has recently become a celebrity among job seekers in China. It is while sharing the story of failing to find a job because of the ’35 -year-old age limit’. He graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Sichuan University, a prestigious local university, in 2011, received a master’s degree, and worked as a journalist for several years.
However, as his business, which he started after leaving the media world, went bankrupt last year, he became a job seeker. He revealed that he once delivered food, but quit after learning that the compensation for the accident was only 26 yuan (about 4700 won). Chen said on social media , “After the age of 35 , even if I send a resume, 98 % do not even reply. ” It fell due to restrictions, ” he lamented.
CNN reported that the phenomenon of the ’35-year-old curse’, in which people cannot find a new job or are fired from their existing job, is spreading in China around the age of 35 . The explanation is that employers are avoiding workers around the age of 35 who have to pay more than new employees and find it difficult to work overtime due to childcare.
In fact, in China, the age of hiring new civil servants is limited to 35 or less, but this trend has spread to general companies, and CNN reported that they are implicitly reluctant to hire employees over the age of 35. Even a report published by a Chinese government agency last year introduced the “35- year-old curse” as a universal phenomenon.
Jobs are passive due to slow economic recovery… Taxi and delivery drivers in their mid-30s are common
Behind the spread of the ’35 -year-old curse’ is the slower-than-expected recovery of the Chinese economy. As the economy is not recovering, companies are also passive about hiring. Big tech companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, which Chinese college graduates prefer, have already cut thousands to tens of thousands of jobs each.
China’s serious job shortage is also confirmed by statistics. China’s youth unemployment rate between the ages of 16 and 24 hit an all-time high of 21.3 percent in June.
However, it is pointed out that this figure excludes ‘young people who do not actively seek jobs’, and the actual situation may be more serious. Zhang Dandan (張丹丹), professor of economics at Peking University, told economic media Caixin, “The unemployment rate does not take into account the 16 million young people who have given up employment, so the actual unemployment rate will reach 46.5%.”
The problem is that there is still a shortage of jobs, and job seekers will pour in. The number of university graduates in China this year reached 11.58 million, an increase of 820,000 from last year, the highest ever.
CNN pointed out that there is a high risk of being left behind in the job market while increasing the straps for better specifications than others. The media said, “The movement to acquire master’s and doctoral degrees to gain an edge in the job market paradoxically slows down the entry of Chinese young people into the job market and makes it difficult to get a job.”
As such, new employment is tight, but finding a new job after the age of 30 is close to impossible. CNN reported that it is common for Chinese youth in their mid-30s, who are struggling to make ends meet, to become taxi drivers or delivery drivers.
“When the baby is born, the place disappears”… Chinese childbirth encouragement ‘rice cake in the picture’
It is female workers who are particularly affected by the 35-year-old curse. Liu Mo, 35, who worked at a biotech company in Shenzhen, lost her job while on maternity leave. ” She thinks the company made the (fire) decision based on cost-effectiveness considerations,” she told CNN . In this situation, it is pointed out that even if the government comes up with policies such as encouraging childbirth, it is a ‘rice cake in the picture’. According to the
Hong Kong South China Morning Post ( SCMP )안전놀이터, as the employment crisis became severe, there were also ‘full-time children’ in China who live with their parents, do housework, and receive a salary from their parents.
Zhang Yiran, an assistant professor of law at Cornell University, told CNN that “China’s labor law prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity or religion in the workplace, but there is no appropriate regulation regarding age,” and pointed out the need to supplement this through the legal system. In addition, CNN
reported that some provinces are discussing raising the working age standard for civil servants from 35 to 40 . On the other hand, the Hong Kong Myeongbo reported that there are also claims to advance employment, marriage, and childbirth by lowering the legal marriage age (22 for men and 20 for women) in China.