Harry Guo built a life that defined success in China. Born in 1971, he came of age in the 1990s, when China deepened its economic reforms. He taught himself computing and found his way into jobs in multinational firms and then Chinese internet giants. By his mid-40s, he was comfortably middle class. He and his wife paid off two mortgages early and sent their daughter to high school and college in Canada.

哈里·郭（音）打造了堪称中国式成功范本的人生。他生于1971年，在90年代中国深化经济改革的浪潮中步入成年。他自学计算机技术，先后入职多家跨国企业，之后又进入中国互联网巨头公司。40多岁时，他已跻身中产阶级，生活安稳，和妻子提前还清了两套房产的房贷，把女儿送到加拿大读高中和大学。

Then Mr. Guo was laid off. Now 55, he has not had a job in more than two years. It’s not for lack of trying. The supermarket near his Beijing apartment won’t hire cashiers over 50. The warehouse where he inquired about work turned him away. An acquaintance who runs a small business told him, with some embarrassment, that his age made him unemployable.

但后来，哈里·郭被裁员了。如今55岁的他已经两年多没有工作。这并非因为他没有努力尝试，他位于北京住处附近的超市不招50岁以上的收银员；他去仓库求职也被拒之门外；一位经营小生意的熟人带着几分尴尬告诉他，他这个年纪，实在没法录用。

For decades, people like Mr. Guo — I call them the reform generation — felt they had struck a straightforward bargain with the system: Work hard, don’t criticize the government, and life will steadily improve.

几十年来，像哈里·郭这样的人——我称他们为改革一代——始终觉得，自己和这个体系之间有一份简单明了的约定：努力工作，不批评政府，生活就会稳步向好。

During the boom years, when China’s economy was growing in double digits, career opportunities were abundant as Chinese and multinational companies competed for talent. A job hop could mean a 30 percent raise. They were the first in their families to go to college, own apartments and rise through corporate ranks. They sent their children to tutors and schools abroad.

在经济腾飞的年代，中国经济保持两位数高速增长，中国企业和跨国公司争相抢夺人才，职业机会遍地都是。跳一次槽意味着薪资可能上升30%。他们是家族里第一代大学生、第一代拥有房产、第一代在企业里一路晋升到管理层的人。他们给孩子报补习班，送孩子出国留学。

The Chinese dream, much like the American one, was the expectation that those who worked hard could have a better life than their parents’ and that their children’s would be better than their own.

这个中国梦和美国梦何其相似：人们相信，只要努力工作，就能过上比父母更好的生活，而自己的孩子又能过得比自己更好。

Now that dream is unraveling. There is little room for upward mobility and a strong downward pull. The housing market has contracted sharply. Private investment has slowed. Multinational companies shuttered or scaled back their operations. Layoffs have spread through technology, media, education and property-related industries since the pandemic, even though China’s official urban unemployment rate has hovered around 5 percent for years.

如今，这个梦正在破碎。社会向上流动的空间微乎其微，向下流动的拉力却无比强劲。房地产市场大幅收缩，民间投资持续放缓，跨国企业纷纷关停或缩减在华业务。尽管中国官方城镇失业率多年来一直徘徊在5%左右，但自疫情以来，裁员潮已蔓延至科技、媒体、教育及房地产相关行业。

Across China’s cities, midcareer professionals who rode the reform-era boom are discovering that the labor market has little use for them. They are too old for an economy that prizes youth, too expensive for firms under pressure and too financially committed — mortgages, tuition, aging parents — to stop working.

在中国的各大城市，乘着改革浪潮之势成长的职场中年专业人士发现，劳动力市场已经容不下他们了。在这个崇尚年轻的经济环境里，他们年纪太大；对于经营承压的企业而言，他们薪资成本太高；房贷、子女学费、年迈的父母这些沉甸甸的经济责任又让他们根本无法停止工作。

Mr. Guo invoked a popular social media meme: “At 40 you’re dead professionally. You’re simply waiting to be buried.” At 55, he feels he has already been interred.

哈里·郭提起了社交媒体上一个广为流传的梗：“40岁职场生涯已死，只剩坐等入土。”55岁的他，觉得自己早已被埋葬了。

When Mr. Guo lost his job in October 2023, he registered his unemployment status with an official administrative office in his neighborhood and was added to a WeChat group labeled “40/50,” a bureaucratic designation for unemployed women over 40 and men over 50. In his residential compound of roughly 1,000 households, the group has grown from four members to 86 in just over a year.

2023年10月失业后，哈里·郭去他家附近的政务服务中心办理了失业登记，被拉进了一个名为“40/50”的微信群。这是一个官僚术语，特指40岁以上的失业女性和50岁以上的失业男性。在他居住的约有1000户人家的小区里，这个群在短短一年多里从最初的四个人涨到了86人。

Age discrimination is so normalized that it has its own name: the Curse of 35, a widely held belief that white-collar workers become liabilities rather than assets once they cross that age threshold. Although Chinese law contains general prohibitions against employment discrimination, it does not clearly define or strongly enforce protections against age bias. A recent WeChat post from a recruitment company in Chongqing was typical: a customer service role capped at 30, a bank call center at 35, a semiconductor plant at 30, a warehouse sorting job at 45.

就业年龄歧视已经如此常态化，甚至有了一个专属的名字：35岁魔咒。人们普遍认为，一旦跨过35岁这个门槛，白领就从企业的资产变成了负担。尽管中国法律有禁止就业歧视的通用条款，但并未明确界定年龄歧视，也缺乏强有力的执法保障。重庆一家招聘公司发布的微信帖子颇具代表性：客服岗年龄上限30岁，银行呼叫中心限35岁以下，半导体工厂限30岁，仓库分拣岗限45岁。

根据某招聘平台2021年的数据，阿里巴巴员工的平均年龄为31岁。

Chinese tech firms skew notably young. According to 2021 data from the job platform Maimai, the average employee age at ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, was 27; at Alibaba and Huawei it was 31. In large U.S. tech firms, the average employee age, according to one analysis, is 37.

中国科技公司的员工年龄结构更是呈现出明显的年轻化倾向。职场社交平台脉脉2021年的数据显示，TikTok母公司字节跳动的员工平均年龄仅27岁，阿里巴巴和华为的平均年龄是31岁。据一项分析显示，美国大型科技公司的员工平均年龄为37岁。

For many, however, the indignity of ageism is only part of the problem. What is more disorienting is that the ladder of mobility they climbed has been pulled from under their feet.

然而对很多人来说，年龄歧视带来的屈辱感只是问题的一部分。更让他们无所适从的是，他们曾经向上攀爬的那架社会上升阶梯已从脚下抽走。

One man, who asked to be identified only by his last name, Ma, spent more than two decades as a reporter and editor at a state broadcast station. He had moved to Shanghai from Inner Mongolia in 2003, part of a wave of provincial talent drawn to opportunities in bigger cities. During their peak earning years, he and his wife, who still works there, brought home roughly $70,000 a year combined. They had two daughters, bought cars and traded up to a bigger apartment.

一位只愿透露自己姓马的男性在一家省级广播电视台做了20多年记者和编辑。2003年，他从内蒙古来到上海，是当年涌向大城市寻找机会的外省人才大军中的一员。在收入巅峰期，他和妻子（她至今仍在该台工作）年收入合计约50万元。他们生了两个女儿，买了车，换了更大的房子。

Then, around 2018, advertising revenue began to dry up. Mr. Ma’s work increased even as pay declined. In 2022, he was diagnosed with a blood disorder requiring a bone-marrow transplant and time off. He returned to work early, against his doctor’s advice, because he had heard that the broadcaster was restructuring and he feared losing his job.

大约2018年，广电行业的广告收入开始枯竭。马先生的工作量越来越大，薪水却不升反降。2022年，他确诊了一种血液病，需要接受骨髓移植，并需要长期休养。可他听说台里正在进行结构调整，害怕丢掉工作，最终不顾医生的建议，提前返岗。

He lost it anyway. On Dec. 31, 2024, he recorded his final broadcast. He now receives about $280 a month in unemployment benefits. He buys discounted vegetables and meat. He has applied for audio editing and journalism roles. No one has called back. He is 47.

可他最终还是丢了工作。2024年12月31日，他录完了职业生涯的最后一期节目。现在，他每个月能领到约2000元的失业金，买菜买肉都要挑打折的，他去申请了各种音频剪辑和新闻相关的岗位，但毫无回音。他今年47岁。

“The moment you’re past a certain age, you become invisible,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what you know.”

“人一过了某个年纪，就成了透明人，”他说，“你过去做什么、懂什么，全都不重要了。”

When I asked him about his future, he said he’d rather not think about it.

当我问他对未来有什么打算时，他说，宁愿不去想这些。

In a second-tier city in northern China, a 39-year-old network infrastructure salesman had a career that followed the same arc. He asked to be identified only by his nickname, Benchi, which is the Chinese name for Mercedes. He left his village for college, joined a major internet company, got married and bought an apartment in 2019, when real estate prices were at their peak.

在中国北方的一座二线城市，一名39岁的网络基础设施销售员也经历了同样的职业轨迹。他要求只用他的昵称“奔驰”来称呼他，这是梅赛德斯汽车的中文名字。他从农村考上大学，入职一家大型互联网公司，结婚成家，在2019年房价顶峰时贷款买了房。

Benchi was laid off in 2023. After an eight-month search, he found a position paying roughly half his previous salary.

奔驰在2023年被裁员。找了八个月的工作，才找到一份薪资只有之前一半的岗位。

The apartment he purchased has lost at least a quarter of its value and is difficult to sell. His wife, a full-time homemaker, wants to have a second child. He doesn’t see how they can afford another child, and thinks they should cut back on expenses, even cancel their daughter’s dance class.

他当年买的房子如今市值已经跌了至少四分之一，还很难出手。做全职家庭主妇的妻子想生二胎，可他觉得根本负担不起第二个孩子，觉得家里应该缩减开支，甚至连女儿的舞蹈课都想停掉。

“I used to think next year will be better,” Benchi said. “Now I think about how to make sure what I have doesn’t collapse.”

“以前我总觉得，明年会更好，”奔驰说。“现在我想的只是怎么守住手头的东西别崩盘。”

Harry Guo has made peace with his situation. “This has nothing to do with me,” he said. “It’s like the Cultural Revolution or the ’90s mass layoff of the state-owned enterprises. It’s a historical cycle. It just happens to be our turn.”

哈里·郭已经和自己的处境和解了。“这不是我个人的问题，”他说。“就像当年的文化大革命，就像90年代的国企下岗潮。这是历史的周期。这次刚好轮到我们。”

He now believes in making the greatest effort while preparing for the worst. “When the Titanic is sinking,” he said, “all you can do is try to go down with some dignity.”

现在的他信奉一句话：尽最大的努力，做最坏的打算。他说，“泰坦尼克沉没的时候，你能做的无非是尽量有尊严地沉下去。”