Coming of new layoff wave

Zeng Xiangquan, dean of School of Labor and Human Resources of the Renmin University of China, warned that "a possible domino effect of layoff may fall on migrant workers and university diploma holders as well."

Some laid-off multinational white-collar workers may compete for jobs with new university graduates. As a result, the graduates may in turn fight for work designed for migrant workers, according to Zeng.

China is undergoing an economic transformation that needs high-tech innovative talents, said Chen Zhao, a professor with Fudan University. Millions of workers were laid off during the last comparable process in China during 1998-2001, with massive emergence of private-owned firms competing for market share with state-owned manufacturers.

The layoff wave hit seven to nine million people per year from 1998 to 2001, according to the Year Book of Chinese Labor Statistics.

A big group of the workers fired at that time are still living on meager incomes and are known as "4050" as most were born in the 1940s and 1950s.

"If some white-collar workers continue their routine work without picking up more skills and qualifications, they may be the next generation of '4050' as they are not young enough to start from the very beginning,"  said Feng Lijuan, head consultant with 51job.com, a local job hunting website.

It's time for attention to be paid to the white-collar status quo and the government should provide training and psychological aid to these workers, urged Zhang Libin, director of the labor market department at the Labor Science Research Institute under China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.