On the cold day of December last year, after 9:00 am Euronews bid farewell to his wife and two children and went to the headquarters of the smartphone manufacturer ZTE Shenzhen. Although he had been fired by the company more than a week ago, Talk to the management again. 'Our company has internal conflicts,' he once told his wife, 'I am very likely to be the victim.' It is not clear whether Ou Jianxin had talks with the management of ZTE, but it is clear that After arriving at the company for a period of time, he jumped from the office on the 26th floor of the ZTE R&D building and died. He died only 42 years old.
Four days later, Eugene's widow published an article about her husband in a beautiful article on the blog platform. According to its description, ZTE refused to give the reason for the dismissal of the new European Union.
Although the new widow of Ou Jian later deleted the post, the story spread rapidly. In four months, this post has spread wildly, and the number of views even reached millions. Even though Ou Jianxin commits suicide, it is still a mystery. , but these are not important to those who are concerned about their stories. It is important that the readers who focus on this story are mainly focused on the new age of European Construction. According to the data from Zhaopin, three quarters of technology practitioners are not By the age of 30, the online hot debate precisely reflects the anxiety that has existed for many years. Chinese Internet users call it the '30-year-old middle-aged crisis'.
Despite having a black hair, smooth skin, and a girlish appearance, Helen He, head of human resources at a Shanghai-based technology company, knows well about age-related pressures: He Xi, 38, was told by her boss. , Don't recruit people over the age of 35. She said, 'Most people in their thirties are already married and tired of the family - they can't concentrate on high-intensity work,' although this traditional concept may be In the near future, she will also force her back to the job market. 'If a 35-year-old job seeker does not want to be a manager, then the recruiting company will not even look at the resume.'
Idealistic youth are the DNA of the US technology industry. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg all dropped out of college and founded. Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, the company culture of the companies they founded, are full of disdain for authority. Since 2015, Google has been fighting class-action lawsuits by age-related employees in California; and in March, ProPublica’s According to a survey, IBM has laid off 20,000 US senior employees over the past five years, while “big increase in employees born after 1980”. Both companies, however, stated that they have complied with labor laws.
The same is true in China’s technology industry. Ironically, most of China’s most well-known technology companies are founded by men over the age of 30. Lei Jun established Xiaomi, a smart phone maker, at the age of 40, and is expected to list this year’s Xiaomi. The valuation reached at least 80 billion U.S. dollars; Ma Yun was 34 when he founded Alibaba, and Li Yanhong was 31 when he founded Baidu. The exception in the technology industry is Tencent’s Ma Huateng, who was only 27 years old when he founded the company. However, The new generation of power in the tech industry tends to be younger - the application of the dripping trips of Cheng Weihe and the news mashup application of Zhang Yiming in today's headlines have established their businesses in their 20s.
The pressure on senior employees in all walks of life in China still exists, but this issue is particularly acute in the tech industry. The enthusiasm for young talents also indicates China’s desire for global technology industry leaders. For decades, China has been using Technological progress promotes economic development, and 'Made in China 2025' has pushed science and technology to a higher position.
On the surface, the death of Ou Jianxin is no different from the suicide of Foxconn factory workers in previous years, but readers' comments on the incident reflect different situations. In a country with a population of 1.4 billion, for many technology companies The cost of young employees is generally lower than that of more experienced older colleagues. In order to keep up with the increasingly fierce industry competition, Chinese internet companies often expect their employees to have a so-called 996 work schedule: 9:00 am to 9:00 pm , Work 6 days a week. He Xi wrote in an article published by Zhihui that after 30 years old, it was very difficult for people to recover from the late work of the previous day to return to work. At the same time, as the focus gradually shifted from work to family, Working overtime has become a greater burden for employees over the age of 30. 'In terms of human resources,' she said, 'I have found that 30 is already the beginning of the middle-aged crisis.'
Searching on Zhaopin recruiting, you can find tens of thousands of job postings asking applicants to be under 35 years of age: This includes a senior manager with a master's degree from Jingdong, a well-known e-commerce provider. The online travel platform Ctrip released a sale. Job requirements Applicants are 20 to 28 years of age. The newly released front-end developer position of a Beijing-based tech start-up company, the company said that it is willing to relax the requirements for education, but this loose condition does not apply to age: University A degree is not absolutely necessary, but if you are older than 30, don’t bother to apply. “Working in the tech industry is like a professional athlete,” Robin, an entrepreneur and angel investor in companies like Xiaomi and Twitter. Chan admits, 'You worked very hard from 20 to 40 years old. I hope you can make a fortune. After that, switch to it and give the young man a try.'
Not everyone responds to age-related recruitment restrictions. Some people say that this system taught them to work harder than their 30-year-old colleagues. 33-year-old Liu Huaiyi said that Nokia’s Chengdu office cuts staff' I make changes and improve my skills to get a better job. I don't believe that after 35 years old I can't find a job. Everyone in the IT industry must keep learning to keep up with the trend. ' After eight months After the job search, he was hired by the IT department of another multinational healthcare company, and this new position will provide more job security.
The competition of top technology talents has prompted technology companies in complex fields such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase their pay in relevant positions and relax their age requirements. If there is no other solution, the aging trend in China will exacerbate the shortage of labor in the technology industry. According to related data, 47% of the population in China is now over 40 years old, compared with only 30% 20 years ago. By 2030, this figure is expected to rise to 55%. He Xi, the head of human resources in the technology industry, is still Hopefully, the tech industry will remove age restrictions. She said that an aging population means that fewer and fewer young candidates are available. 'If you don't have more young employees, you will have no choice.'
For now, He Xi is also planning for herself. She is in two apartments in Shanghai and is able to rent out to earn a profit. She is still thinking of publishing a book, dreaming of becoming a real writer and industry opinion leader. She founded a The WeChat public number, if the reader likes her article, can reward. In April this year, she also published an e-book with a dozen of her colleagues working on human resources. The content is how the company uses WeChat to find talent.
She advises other people to follow her. 'We are worried that we may lose our jobs as we grow older. How can we feed our families and lead a better life?' He asked. 'We must start doing something right now.' what. '