This Day, That Year

Item from March 25, 1998, in China Daily: Li Shanlu (right), a 42-year-old laid-off worker, applies to work as a driver for a private company at the Beijing Municipal Employment Service Center ... Beijing will take various measures to help 80 percent of the city's laid-off workers find new jobs this year ... With the restructuring of State enterprises in recent years, the re-employment of laid-off workers has become a nationwide issue.

By the end of last year, China had to cope with more than 10 million laid-off workers, about 60 percent of whom were women.

In the 1990s, the acceleration of structural reform had a major impact on a number of sectors, such as the heavy and petrochemical industries, which were dealing with overcapacity.