Laying Off Responsibility: Microcredit, Entrepreneurship, and China's Industrial Retrenchment

Nicholas Loubere

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    In early 2016, the Chinese government announced that state-owned steel and coal companies would be restructured, resulting in the loss of 1.8 to 6 million jobs. In April, seven government agencies jointly release a set of guidelines outlining a strategy for mitigating the fallout from this latest round of mass layoffs. One of the key elements of this strategy is the encouragement of entrepreneurial activity through tax relief and subsidised ‘microcredit’ for laid-off workers. Does the promotion of entrepreneurship and self-employment have the potential to meet the needs of the newly unemployed? Or is this strategy actually part of a wider ideological project aimed at individualising responsibility for social welfare and fragmenting labour?
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)20-23
    JournalMade in China
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2016

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