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                     Living Without the "Iron Rice Bowl"

    Since 1987, reform of the Chinese labour system has stepped out of the laboratory and into the real world of employment. For many, the " iron rice bowl " no longer exlsts. The " iron rice bowls " - a Chinese euphemism for government-assigned secure jobs that had been cherished for more than 30 years - were shattered.
    No accurate figure was available on how many workers have been laid off so far. But scattered reports offer a glimpse of the scope of unemployment.

    In 1987, State-owned enterprises in Hubei Province laid off 14, 000 workers. Last summer, 30, 000 people in Shanghai were receiving unemployment pensions.
    The inauguration of a labour market at the Shenyang Steel Pipes Factory in Liaoning Province went unheraldedno firecrackers, no marching band, no bursts of applause. Instead of gaiety, weeping was heard at the perimeter of a small crowd of about 50 people witnessing the event.

    Except for a few officials sitting at tables on the platform, everyone at the meeting had been laid off at the end of a work.optimization programme. They included labourers, cadres, technicians, Communist Party members, and even university graduates. The saddest were the eight ex-cadres who lost their executive jobs.
    Zhao yusheng, 46, was Party secretary of the No 2 workshop of the factory before he was laid off. He found another job on the labour market, loading and unloading trucks. He once served in the army and participated in battles. But this turn of events made him cry.

    "For more than 20 years I had been doing what the Party asked me to do, " he said. "Now on the labour market I find I do not have any skills. I can only become a truck loader."
    For more than 30 years, unemployment in China has been regarded as an evil which labour planners have tried to avoid at all costs,
    The planners were once quite complacent about the solution--the "iron rice bowl". They were confident that a policy of "low salaries and broad employment" would end unemployment in China forever.

    But the " iron rice bowl " system was a dead-end. Reluctantly,the planners.looked for another way.And even though it would cause pain and difficulties,they recommended
a system that would permit laying off incompetent staff. That, they felt, would increase efficiency and give ailing enterprises a new lease on life.
    For workers affected, lay-off is a bitter pill which some simply cannot swallow.
For more than 30 years, Chinese people have felt totally secure in their jobs. Now they are facing the possibility of losing their jobs, and many have reacted with panic and horror.