In the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of Shanghai, a dozen men waving identity cards crowded around a recruitment agency, hoping to secure a 12-hour shift at a warehouse.
“We need strong people,” the agent told the group, warning of high temperatures inside the warehouse due to summer weather.
The men were among thousands of domestic migrant workers in China’s capital struggling to make ends meet every day as the country competes for dwindling jobs in factories and construction sites amid a slowing economy.
China’s top political officials, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, are gathering for a key meeting this week, with the country’s economic issues at the top of the agenda.
Outside the employment agency, Shen Peng, 34, from northern China’s Shaanxi province, said she had been looking for work for 10 days but had not found one.
“I want to work in a factory,” he told AFP, saying that until now he had only been offered low-paid, hard physical work.
A single father and former restaurant chef, Shen is the family’s sole breadwinner.
“My child’s mother died of illness so I owe him a debt of gratitude. I have to at least find a well-paid job,” Shen told AFP.
Shen, who recently returned to Shanghai after three years in Shaanxi province, pays 40 yuan ($5.50) a night for a tiny, air-conditioned room in a boarding house and considers himself lucky compared with others who pay less for shared rooms with only a fan.
– “I’ve done it all” –
The current lack of job opportunities stands in stark contrast to what Shen experienced when he first came to Shanghai in 2017.
Job options were plentiful at the time, and he worked in a factory owned by Taiwan’s Quanta Computer, earning up to 8,000 yuan a month with his employer providing accommodation and food.
Now, he says, staffing agencies are more selective in filling coveted factory positions.
“In the old days, there was no restriction as long as you knew the 26 letters of the English alphabet,” he told AFP, adding that now recruiters even reject people who look overweight for fear they will be unfit for the job.
Shen Chunping, an Anhui native who is no relation to Shen Peng, had some good luck at an employment agency last Tuesday.
He was selected for a temporary dishwashing job at a restaurant, with a salary of 112 yuan a day.
For Shen Chunping, who was unable to find work in May and June, getting this job has come as a great relief.
“I’m short and not very educated, only went to secondary school, so now I do whatever job I can,” he told AFP.
“I’ve done everything from delivering packages to working as a security guard to delivering takeaways,” Shen Chunping said.
“This year there are more people (looking for work) but they can’t find work,” he told AFP.
– Shanghai Dream –
Before dawn last Tuesday, outside a nondescript housing estate near the employment agency, about 100 people had gathered at an informal roadside labour exchange.
Many people stood with shovels, waiting for their employers to pick them up for construction work.
Workers who had been there since 3 a.m. chatted with familiar faces and munched on fried bread from a nearby breakfast stall.
“This year is a bit worse than last year and Shanghai’s development has reached its limit,” Xiao Tongfang, a job-hunting native from Anhui province, told AFP.
Xiao said he had been trying to make his fortune in the wealthy Chinese city for 20 years.
He plans to return to his hometown and start farming “in a few years, if I can no longer stay here.”
“It’s not possible back home,” said Mei Buqin, another worker from Anhui province, when asked why she decided to look for work in Shanghai.
As the sun rose, one lucky job seeker told AFP he was on his way to work.
The man smiled as he hopped on the back of his new employer’s scooter and sped off into town.
tjx/je/cwl