A’cui came to Shanghai chasing a better life. But after two years of hard work, everything changed—he caught COVID-19 in April and was sent to a makeshift hospital during the city-wide  lockdown. Since then, every factory job he’s applied for has turned him away. No one says it outright, but he knows why: employers discriminate against those who’ve been in quarantine facilities, fearing they’re unreliable or still contagious.

 

Now, with no stable income, he scrapes by on daily-wage gigs, never knowing if he’ll have work tomorrow. At night, he sleeps under a bridge. He’s not alone—many like him, once full of ambition, now drift between odd jobs and homelessness, trapped in the shadows of post-lockdown employment discrimination.

 

A’cui’s story mirrors a growing reality in China’s gig economy, reminiscent of the so-called “Sanhe Gods”—young migrant workers cast aside by the system, surviving one uncertain day at a time.