BEIJING, July 12 — Every company has its own recruitment criteria. In China, however, some firms discriminate against job applicants on the basis of age, zodiac sign or other factors unrelated to their professional skills. It’s a widespread and persistent phenomenon that’s now causing concern among local authorities.
To find a job in China, it’s better to be young (but not too young), to have a surname that doesn’t include certain characters, and to know your blood type. It may sound absurd, but some companies in the country use these discriminatory selection criteria when hiring new workers, according to several local media reports.
One media outlet, Sixth Tone, spoke to a 29-year-old woman who was asked by recruiters for her zodiac sign when she applied for a job as an accountant. Her application was rejected due to the incompatibility of her star sign with that of her potential supervisor. “Zodiac signs have nothing to do with my work ability. It’s unreasonable for the company to set such requirements. I wouldn’t have taken the interview even if I had the chance,” she told Sixth Tone.
Evidence of discrimination in recruitment in China continues to emerge, at a time when the Asian country is facing major economic difficulties since the lifting of restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. Young people are the first to suffer: the unemployment rate among Chinese people aged 16 to 24 reached a record 20.8 per cent in May (compared with 5.2 per cent for the working population as a whole), according to official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. Millions of new graduates are struggling to find work that matches their level of education, and are unfortunately swelling the ranks of the unemployed.
This phenomenon is all the more alarming given that time is not on their side. Many Chinese employers refuse to hire employees over 35. Some job offers even mention this outright, according to the New York Times. This aversion to middle-aged workers has a name in the “Middle Kingdom:” the “curse of 35.” It reflects the inequality of treatment faced by job applicants in a country where discrimination biases in hiring can take various forms.
Absurd but no less legal
Some forms of discrimination are prohibited by Chinese law. At least if they relate to the applicant’s ethnic origin, gender, religious beliefs, disability or place of origin (rural/urban). Age, zodiac sign, surname and physical characteristics do not feature among these criteria, nor do most of the astonishing — if not to say absurd — selection criteria used by the country’s employers during the hiring process.
The recruitment difficulties faced by certain sectors have not managed to stem these practices, prompting the Chinese government to sound the alarm. It recently spoke out against these discriminatory practices in the newspaper China Youth Daily, which it controls. “These ridiculous recruitment criteria seem designed to embarrass job applicants. However, it’s the companies themselves who are likely to find themselves in trouble, as these unusual demands could lead to legal action and sanctions, which would greatly damage their brand image,” reads the article.
What’s more, the most coveted profiles on the job market are likely to turn away from companies with unrealistic recruitment processes, especially candidates from the younger generation. Indeed, young Chinese people do not have the same relationship with work as their elders. They resist unpaid overtime and refuse to work themselves to death for employers who don’t share their values.
This change in mentality is disconcerting recruiters and, above all, public authorities. The latter are particularly concerned about the fashion for “tang ping” (or “lying flat”). It consists of doing the barest minimum in the office, or even leaving the world of work in rejection of the traditional work-life pattern of “996” — working from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week — and consumer culture. Beijing is taking this silent protest very seriously, with Chinese President Xi Jinping even alluding to it during an official speech given in 2021. — ETX Studio