Überschüssig - Aussortiert - Arbeitslos? Zur Reform der Arbeitsorganisation in der VR China

Abstract Lifetime employment turned out to be one of the main obstacles to the reform of the labour system in the PRC. Huge labour surplus in Chinese enterprises emerged from an administrative labour allocation, a state guarantee of the means of existence and security, and a lack of occupational mobility. It prevented a significant rise in labour productivity. An organizational change of work by regrouping permanent workers aims at breaking up the rigid work structure and reducing the labour surplus. Its purpose is to promote a switch of enterprise priorities from an extensive to an intensive mode of economic growth. The paper describes the proportions of hidden unemployment and how it came into being, as a result of the priority given to workers’ security for many years. The origin, the main feature and the implementation problems of the actual regrouping of the permanent workers in so-called "optimized working groups" (youhua laodong zuhe) will be the main subject of this analysis. It will also outline the different views concerning the optimized working groups. It will be argued that the intended "optimization" does not induce a fundamental change in the priority of enterprises committed to the improvement of labour productivity. The reason is that neither does it fundamentally call in question the permanent assignment of workers nor does it destroy the roots of hidden unemployment.