Ice Age Think Tank | Middle-aged people, not entitled to unemployment data

Isn’t the biggest pressure for middle-aged people who lose their jobs the bills that keep coming every month? Isn’t it about supporting their families? Isn’t it about mortgage, car loans, and children’s tuition? Isn’t it about being unable to find another job?

By Zhang Mingyang

Yesterday (August 15th), the National Bureau of Statistics announced that it would suspend the release of the urban survey unemployment rate for young people nationwide. For a moment, public opinion was shaken, and it had been a long time since social media was so lively.

Figure/Network

This matter is of course very significant, reflecting the public’s anxiety about the current employment situation and economic situation, but behind this, there may be another layer of meaning: compared to the social goodwill and focus given to young people who cannot find jobs, the unemployment of middle-aged people seems to have always been the object of ridicule, mockery, and even misunderstanding.

01

In the official release of the National Bureau of Statistics on August 15th, in fact, not only the unemployment rate of young people aged 16-24, but also the urban survey unemployment rate “by age group” will be suspended.

According to the usual practice of the National Bureau of Statistics, the release of China’s unemployment rate is divided into two age groups: 16-24 years old and 25-59 years old.

That is to say, even before this suspension, there was no accurate statistical data on the unemployment rate specifically targeting “middle-aged people”.

It doesn’t matter if the official statistics are not available, but in the public opinion, the situation of middle-aged people being unemployed is also distorted and ridiculed, and many tragedies are interpreted as jokes.

A while ago, there was a very popular article on social media: “Starbucks Recently, Filled with Unemployed Middle-Aged People”. It is said that now, as long as you walk into Starbucks on a weekday, you will find a group of middle-aged men and women holding laptops, sitting in Starbucks for a whole day, and then starting to revise their resumes, submit resumes, and browse job websites; some people don’t even order a cup of coffee, carefully taking advantage of the free air conditioning and free charging here, resting for a while when tired, and swiping their phones when bored; in order not to let their families find out that they are unemployed, they go to Starbucks to pretend to go to work, and they also have to calculate the time of arrival and departure from Starbucks.

Yesterday, I saw another article: “When Unemployed Middle-Aged People Flock to the Library”. The gist of the article is that the middle-aged people in Starbucks may still be thinking about why they are unemployed, and those who truly understand cost reduction and efficiency have already squeezed into the library, “In middle age, what is most precious is actually free, what a person really needs is just air conditioning, hot water, a chair to sleep on, and a book that can be opened at any time”.

Figure/Tuchong Creative

The meaning behind these articles is nothing more than that, when middle-aged people are unemployed, they like to pretend, pretend in front of friends, pretend in front of relatives, and the most important thing to overcome is their own self-esteem. It seems that all the problems of middle-aged unemployment are because of their own actions.

Behind this trend of turning middle-aged unemployment into a joke, is the romanticization of unemployment, which minimizes the tragedy and even suffering.

Isn’t the biggest pressure for middle-aged people who lose their jobs the bills that keep coming every month? Isn’t it about supporting their families? Isn’t it about mortgage, car loans, and children’s tuition? Isn’t it about being unable to find another job?

To render what unemployed middle-aged people pretend to go out and pretend to go to work every day, this is too idyllic, as if middle-aged people all have a large amount of savings (a small treasury), and they can easily cope with family expenses without earning money.

I have seen many unemployed middle-aged people, and they may also go to cafes and libraries, but I have rarely heard of anyone pretending to go to work.

No money, such an obvious thing, pretending is not possible.

Even many middle-aged people themselves like to self-deprecate their unemployment. They may think that life is already difficult enough, and self-deprecation can help them improve their mentality. Of course, this is correct, but the public opinion formed objectively is: middle-aged people are unemployed, it’s no big deal, complaining is self-promotion and self-pity.

Middle-aged unemployment is not just a matter of losing dignity in front of family members, but also the collapse of the world, the lack of life, and the uncertain future.

Middle-aged unemployment is not one or two jokes, it is sleepless nights, tossing and turning all night.

02

There is now a peculiar way of thinking, which is to regard all middle-aged people as “lucky people of the times”, believing that they have enjoyed the dividends of the times and earned assets and positions beyond their own abilities by luck.

Therefore, once middle-aged people are unemployed, some people will sneer: who told you to buy a house, who told you to get married, who told you to have children, who told you not to save money, who told you to borrow heavily.

In a word, middle-aged people are unemployed, it’s all their own fault; middle-aged people have a difficult life after unemployment, it’s even more their own fault.

But in the tide of the times, how many people can be prescient and clear-headed? Many mistakes are hindsight after a few years. Middle-aged people may have made mistakes like this or that, but as long as they don’t borrow too much and don’t be too extravagant, what’s wrong with pursuing a better life within their own abilities?

Some people will also sneer, why don’t middle-aged people who are unemployed go to drive online car-hailing, go to deliver food, there is always a way out.

People have no way, of course, they can only go with the flow, the situation is stronger than people. But before they are desperate, it’s not indecent for unemployed middle-aged people to complain about not being able to find those jobs anymore?

Why is society so tolerant of young people rejecting physical labor and blue-collar jobs, and feels it’s so natural; but when it comes to middle-aged people, they feel that they are picky and have high standards, as if not delivering food is not a healthy mentality, and not driving online car-hailing is not letting go of their status?

Figure/Tuchong Creative

Why are we so harsh on unemployed middle-aged people?

In their youth, they encountered the most prosperous time of this country’s economy, 996 was there, and working day and night was also there, they were used to the infinite expansion of the economy and the narrative of life getting better and better, they borrowed money, they repaid loans, they spent money to enjoy life, and every penny they spent entered the re-circulation of the economy.

One day, the music of the grand ball suddenly stopped, they were at a loss and were kicked out of the ball, and they may never encounter another ball in their lifetime, and the rest of their lives can only look at the red dancing shoes and recall the past.

They were kicked out of the ball and had a bleak future and no life, and they also had to suffer endless ridicule and malice.

Isn’t this a tragedy? What is there to blame? Blame them for seeking enjoyment and not participating in the feast of the times? Isn’t the pursuit of a better life the eternal nature of mankind?

03

Compared to going to Starbucks and the library to pretend to go to work, an article a while ago may better represent the core of middle-aged unemployment: “After experiencing wage arrears and unemployment, a 44-year-old architect died in Shenzhen”.

After the designer lost his job, he may have also been to Starbucks, to the library, and to places like that, but he was not pretending anything, nor was he being pretentious, he just suddenly lost the direction of his life, and he didn’t know where to go in the world.

But he and his wife have a son and a daughter in Shenzhen, with monthly expenses and a mortgage of about 20,000 yuan, he cannot lie flat like young people, and he cannot go back to his hometown to be a full-time child.

Figure/Tuchong Creative

Some people say, why doesn’t he sell his house? Not to mention whether it can be sold in a hurry, but the reason why people are people is that they will be greedy for the good times of the past, and they are not willing to break the original track of life until the last moment.

If it really comes to that step, some people would rather jump.

Really don’t casually say that someone’s spirit is not strong enough, we don’t understand the world of the taciturn, and everyone’s understanding of dignity is also different. Saying “how to live is not to live” seems open-minded, but how can it not be a heart-warming chicken soup that is not applicable to most people.

But the most important thing is that middle-aged people are unemployed, there are really not so many Starbucks jokes, the choices they are facing are difficult and exhausting, they are struggling to make ends meet, and they are on the line between life and death.