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35 and Out: Age Discrimination Rampant in China’s Tech Industry

Daniel Kim Views  

Yonhap News

As Chinese tech giants struggle with management due to government regulations and economic repression, job opportunities for mid-30s tech workers are rapidly declining, the Financial Times (FT) reported on the 23rd (local time). There’s a growing fear of being laid off in the mid-30s and difficulty in reemployment, leading to the lamentation of 35.

The FT cited five former and current employees reporting that Kuaishou, a Chinese short-form platform, is conducting a layoff program for employees over their mid-30s. A 34-year-old employee, pseudonym Laobai, told FT in an interview, “Seeing my 35-year-old colleague being laid off, I felt shocked and anxious about the possibility of my position being at risk.”

It’s no secret that tech companies prefer young, unmarried workers. There’s a prejudice that older workers can’t keep up with the latest technology and lack the energy to work hard, yet demand high wages. The so-called curse of 35 has been a long-discussed phenomenon. However, the FT analyzed the situation as more blatant and pronounced in China.

Reuters-Yonhap News

The executives of Chinese tech giants have openly expressed their preference for young employees. Tencent President Martin Lau announced a plan in 2019 to restructure 10% of the company’s managers, saying, “More passionate young talents, new colleagues will take their places.” Li Yanhong (Robin Li), the founder and CEO of Baidu, also announced in a public letter in 2019 that he would promote more employees born between 1980 and 1990 to make the company younger. It’s not just the thoughts of the top management. A former sales manager at Meituan, known as the Chinese version of Delivery Hero, told FT, “Most people in their 20s and 30s are full of energy and are willing to move forward for the company.” However, one can’t follow the 996 schedule. Once they become parents and start aging-infamous 996 refers to the work routine of notorious Chinese tech companies, working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

The average age of tech company employees is mostly in their early 30s. According to 2020 statistics from Maimai, a Chinese professional networking site, the average age of employees at ByteDance, which owns TikTok, and e-commerce company Pinduoduo, is 27. The average age of Kuaishou employees is 28, and Didi Chuxing, a ride-hailing service, is 33. This is significantly younger than the average age of Chinese workers, which is 38.3.

In this atmosphere, the management difficulties of big tech companies are fueling the curse of 35. A manager at an internet company told FT, “Before the pandemic, the tech sector was growing rapidly, but then the government crackdown started. Now we are reducing our expensive management layer.” As of December 2021, Kuaishou had reduced its staff of 28,000 by 16% in June last year and is currently conducting a layoff program.

Workers over 35 are also anxious about the difficulty of finding reemployment. China limits the eligibility to take the civil service exam to those under 35, and the service sector, including restaurants and hotels, also prefers younger applicants. According to a survey conducted by Chinese recruitment platform Zhaopin last year, 87% of programmers are apprehensive about being laid off or unable to find a new job after 35. A 38-year-old programmer recently laid off from a large tech company told the FT, “The job market is much worse than last year, especially for older engineers like me.”

Daniel Kim
content@viewusglobal.com

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