It is difficult for migrant workers to find jobs.

Construction workers, sanitation workers, cleaners, dishwashers ... due to lack of skills and education, most of them are doing the hardest, most tiring and dirtiest jobs in the city;

When you are older, you often have to endure the age discrimination that employers do not recruit "women over 40 years old and men over 50 years old", and have low requirements for wages and working environment, and even lower requirements for social security;

Many of them want to work in the city until they can't move, and then return to the countryside to support the elderly. Children are their hope. Many people pin their hopes for a better life on the next generation, most afraid of the embarrassment of "the whole family is working".

Let's approach the "4050" migrant workers.

■ "4050" migrant workers are not picky about their jobs, but they still have to face the distress of "being old, unskilled and difficult to find a job"

On the morning of July 4, the highest temperature in Beijing was 35 degrees Celsius, and the scorching sun was in the sky. Sister Lu, a sanitation worker wearing long pants and a sun hat, is cleaning up the garbage on the roadside in beiyuan road, Changping District.

Sister Lu is 44 years old and her hometown is in Heilongjiang. She has been working as a sanitation worker in Beijing since 2008. "8 hours a day, the work is not complicated, that is, this section of the road is about 3,000 meters clean." Through calculation, she needs to walk 12 km without stopping at work every day.

"Health is dry, working conditions are poor, income is low, and young people don't like to come. They are all older migrant workers like us." Sister Lu said that her basic salary 1400, plus daily subsidies such as vacuuming, can earn about 2300 a month.

Since the late 1980s, a large number of rural surplus laborers have entered cities to work. In the past 20 years, young and strong migrant workers are generally nearly half a year old. According to statistics, at present, "4050" migrant workers like Sister Lu (female over 40 years old, male over 50 years old) account for about 40% of the total number of migrant workers, exceeding 654.38 billion.

Compared with the younger generation of migrant workers, "4050" migrant workers are not picky about their jobs, and most of them are doing the dirtiest, most tiring and most bitter jobs in the city. However, with the growth of their age, they are suffering from the trouble of "being old, having no skills, and finding a job is difficult".

Zhang Haidu, who works as a dishwasher in an office canteen in Beijing, washes more than 65438+100000 bowls, plates and other tableware with five companions at noon every day. "The dishes I have washed in the past six months are almost catching up with the dishes I have washed all my life." Zhang Dahai, who is in his fifties, is slightly rickety and walks slowly.

Zhang Dahai told reporters that he has many years of driving experience and came to Beijing for the first time to find a job in order to drive. "Driving a taxi requires a Beijing hukou. People who drive trucks want strong boys, the oldest being under 35. At our age, we don't consider formal recruitment at all, we can only brush the dishes. " Zhang Dahai can earn about 2000 yuan a month washing dishes. He doesn't expect a high salary, as long as he doesn't default.

In the past two years, "recruitment difficulties" have appeared in many places. However, looking closely at the recruitment conditions of enterprises, there is often a "hard lever"-the age is generally not over 35 years old. According to a survey conducted by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Institute of Labor Science, "18-35 years old" has almost become the general standard for enterprises to recruit general workers. Some enterprises even require "under 28 years old", which is really impossible to recruit, and the standard is relaxed to 40 years old at most.

In the interview, many "4050" migrant workers said that it is increasingly difficult for them to find jobs because of their age, lack of skills and low education. They can only choose industries with poor working conditions and low wages. Young people don't like to do it, and they dare not raise their salaries for fear of being dismissed. The older they get, the harder it is for them to find jobs again.

Zhu Airong, 42, works as a cleaner in an office in Beijing, and her husband works as a security guard in the same unit. Their monthly salary is only 1800 yuan. The salary is not high, but it is the best job she and her husband can find after many comparisons.

What Zhu Airong misses most is the time when she was a female worker in a factory when she was young. "At that time, I posted a trademark in the woven bag factory and paid by the piece. I work fast and earn the most. " Later, the house in Qinhuangdao village was to be demolished, and Zhu Airong and her husband came to Beijing to work. It is not easy for her to find a job in her forties. "Everyone wants young people. At my age, I can do nothing but look after the children and clean up. " Zhu Airong said. However, Zhu Airong does not think this is abnormal. In her view, migrant workers who can still find jobs with good income after the age of 40 must be skilled and capable, and when her generation came out to work, most of them did not even finish junior high school.

■4050 "migrant workers have the heaviest burden of life, and their greatest wish is that their children can have a good development.

For the "4050" migrant workers, they are in the stage of "old and young" and have the heaviest burden of life. Children are both their motivation and their hope. In order to give children a good environment, they do their best in the city.

"If it weren't for a better life for our children, we wouldn't be working so hard in the city." Near the beiyuan road exit of subway 13 line, sister Zhou Tao, a migrant worker selling burritos, told reporters that she and her husband came to Beijing to work from their hometown in Cao Xian County, Heze, Shandong Province in 200 1 year. Over the past ten years, they have changed seven or eight villages in the city and opened several small restaurants, but they have not made any money because of demolition and remote location. Now, her husband is at home mixing noodles and preparing materials. She sells burritos at the subway entrance and earns more than 2000 yuan a month.

Although hard, when it comes to a pair of children, 50-year-old Zhou Tao looks gratified. "My daughter graduated from college and worked as a teacher in New Oriental English School. My son has been admitted to the architecture major of Tongji University in Shanghai and will be able to work in two years. " At this stage, Zhou Tao is most worried about his son's tuition and living expenses. "The tuition fee is more than 6,000 yuan a year, the accommodation fee is more than 2,000 yuan, and the living expenses for 600 yuan a month are about 1.5 million a year. I'm not afraid of your jokes. I miss my children very much now, and I'm afraid I'll call my children again because I have to send them money. " Zhou Tao said with a wry smile.

Zhu Airong's son also went to college, studied acupuncture at a medical university in Jinan, and went to a private clinic after graduation. What worries Zhu Airong is his son's marriage. "The child talked about a girlfriend when he was in college. However, people think that our family conditions are poor, saying that our family has jobs, grandparents have jobs, and parents also have jobs, and they are unwilling to let their daughters associate with my son. "

Unlike city dwellers, there are not a few migrant workers whose children get married and have children in their forties. Working hard, saving money to get married and buying a house for their children have become the focus of these migrant workers' lives.

"I can't afford a house in the city, but I have to marry my son and buy a suite in my hometown." Yu Guangju from his hometown of Sichuan said. At the age of 45, she and her husband spent 654.38+10,000 yuan to buy a building in their hometown county as their eldest son's wedding room. Although the eldest son works in Shanghai, he never goes back once a year. "If you buy a house, even if you have fulfilled your obligations, it is their business to live." This 654.38+ million spent all her savings and borrowed 20,000 from relatives. Now, Yu Guangju and her husband are saving money to pay off debts and getting married for their son, who is 18 years old. What worries her even more is that her husband earned more than 30 thousand a year by digging the subway a few years ago, but now he can't do heavy work because of lumbar muscle strain, so he can only work as a cleaner in the community. His monthly income is only 1000 yuan, and the burden of life is all on Yu Guangju who works as an hourly worker.

■ "If you can't do it in the city" and "If you can't do it, go back to your hometown" have become the general mentality of the "4050" migrant workers.

40-year-old, 50-year-old, working in a city and working in a unit, what should I do for more than ten years?

After working hard outside for many years, Zhu Airong gradually got used to the life in the city, dressing and treating people like city people. But whenever he mentioned his hometown, all that flashed through Zhu Airong's eyes was disappointment. "I want to go back. The air in the countryside is fresh and the houses are spacious and bright. I grow my own vegetables in front of and behind the house, so I just pick them when I cook. " Zhu Airong said that now more than 30 mu of land has been contracted to her sister-in-law, and the contract fee per mu has been given to 200 yuan.

However, the income from farming is still too small and the risk is great. Zhu Airong sighed when he remembered it. "It rained heavily in the northeast last year, and the soybeans planted by my nephew were flooded, and I was still clamoring to come to Beijing to work." Zhu Airong said that she and her husband's brothers and sisters almost all went out to work. Even her parents-in-law who are nearly seventy years old are still working as nannies in Tianjin. "My mother-in-law is very capable. She went to Harbin as a nanny in the 1990s. Now I want to work in Tianjin for another two years, and I will quit at the age of 70. "

The present of parents-in-law seems to be Zhu Airong's tomorrow. "We didn't participate in endowment insurance, and our jobs are always changing; I didn't participate in the new rural insurance, so I can only rely on myself in the future. It is good for children to manage themselves. They can only do more and save more money when they can. "

Zhang Dahai told reporters that his wife is almost 60 years old and works as a nanny in a resident's home in Gulou Street, Beijing, with a monthly income of 2,400 yuan and two days off. "We want to go back to our hometown for another two years, and now we are trying to save more money."

The reporter learned in the interview that most of the "4050" migrant workers have the same ideas as Zhu Airong. "Providing for the elderly by yourself", "working in the city until you can't move" and "going back to your hometown when you can't move" have become common mentality. But both Zhang Dahai and Zhu Airong feel that the older they get, the harder it is to earn money in the city. Wages are getting lower and lower, prices are getting higher and higher, and no matter how much you save, you can't save money.

Long Wenjun, a researcher at the Agricultural Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, pointed out that most of the older migrant workers are engaged in low-tech construction and service industries, and they have little energy to consider their own pension problems. Even if they have a sense of participating in insurance, the continuity and stability emphasized by social security will become their big problem. Therefore, it is urgent to further improve China's old-age insurance system, improve the old-age security facilities and services of this generation of migrant workers, and increase investment in rural old-age security facilities.

Experts also suggested that the society should give more care to the "4050" migrant workers and attach importance to their survival, development and fair employment rights. It is not surprising that an employee's career can last for about 40 years from the age of 16 who is allowed to enter the labor market to the legal retirement age of 60 (female employees are currently 50 years old). Now, once over 40 years old, enterprises are reluctant to recruit people, which is equivalent to giving up half of the labor market ahead of schedule, which is unfair to workers. The government should increase the skills training for the elderly workers, guide enterprises to change their concepts, treat the elderly workers well, and give full play to their advantages of being hardworking, calm and practical.