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Early in the morning, a job agency in suburban Shanghai was packed with a dozen men waving their ID cards, vying for a 12-hour shift at a warehouse.
“We need strong people,” the agent told the group, warning them that temperatures inside the warehouse were high due to the summer weather.
They are among the thousands of migrant workers in the Chinese metropolis, struggling to make ends meet day after day as they compete for dwindling jobs in factories and construction sites amid a slowing economy.
China’s top political leaders, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, gathered this week for a major meeting with the country’s economic woes at the forefront of the agenda.
Outside the employment agency, Shen Peng, a 34-year-old man from northern China’s Shaanxi province, said he had been looking for a job for 10 days but had not found one.
“I want a factory job,” he told AFP, adding that so far he has been restricted to hard manual labour for low wages.
Mr. Shen is a single father who used to be a restaurant chef and the sole breadwinner of the family.
“(My children’s) mother fell ill and died, so I owe it to my children… I must at least find a better-paying job,” Mr Shen told AFP.
Mr. Shen, who recently returned to Shanghai after three years in his hometown of Shaanxi, spends 40 yuan ($5.50) a day for a small air-conditioned room in a boarding house. Compared with others who pay less and live in shared rooms equipped only with fans, he considers himself lucky.
– ‘I’ve done everything’ –
The current lack of job opportunities is in stark contrast to Mr Shen’s experience when he first came to Shanghai in 2017.
At that time, there were many jobs to choose from. He worked in a factory owned by Taiwan’s Quanta Computer, with a monthly salary of up to 8,000 yuan, and the employer provided accommodation and meals.
Now, he said, recruiting agents can be more selective in filling coveted positions at factories.
“In the past there was no limit, as long as you knew the 26 letters of the English alphabet,” he told AFP, adding that now recruiters would even reject people who looked overweight for fear they were not suitable for the job.
Shen Chunping, who is from Anhui and is not related to Shen Peng, had better luck at the employment agency last Tuesday.
He was selected as a dishwasher in a temporary restaurant, with a daily wage of 112 yuan.
Finding this job was a great comfort to Shen Chunping, who had been unable to find a job in May and June.
“I’m short and I don’t have much education – I only went to secondary school – so now I just do whatever job I can,” he told AFP.
“I have done everything: a courier, a security guard, and a food deliveryman,” said Shen Chunping.
“This year there are more people looking for work, but they can’t find it,” he told AFP.
– Shanghai Dream –
Before dawn last Tuesday, about a hundred people gathered at an informal labor exchange on the roadside outside a nondescript residential area near the employment agency.
Many had shovels in hand, waiting for employers to come and take them for construction work.
The workers have been here since 3 a.m., eating fried bread from a nearby breakfast stand and chatting with familiar faces.
“The situation this year is a little worse than last year. Shanghai’s development has reached its limit,” Shao Tongfang, a native of Anhui Province who is waiting for a job, told AFP.
Mr. Shao said he had been trying to make his fortune in this wealthy Chinese city for 20 years.
He plans to return to his hometown to farm “in a few years, when I can’t stay here anymore.”
When asked why he chose to look for work in Shanghai, Mei Buqin, another worker from Anhui, said: “I couldn’t do it in my hometown.”
One lucky job seeker told AFP he was heading to work as the sun rose.
With a smile on his face, the man hopped on the back of a motorcycle driven by his new employer, and together they drove into the city.
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