The true significance of `下岗` is tied to the dramatic reform of China's State-Owned Enterprises (国企, guóqǐ) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Before this period, most urban workers had what was called a 铁饭碗 (tiě fànwǎn), or an “iron rice bowl.” This was a system of guaranteed lifetime employment, where the state-run work unit (单位, dānwèi) provided not just a salary, but also housing, medical care, education for children, and a pension. It was a cradle-to-grave system that offered immense security. The economic reforms, aimed at making the sluggish state-owned economy more efficient and competitive, led to the “smashing of the iron rice bowl.” To modernize, these enterprises had to shed millions of redundant workers. The government coined the term `下岗` as a euphemism for this mass layoff. It was considered softer than `失业` (unemployment) because, in the beginning, `下岗` workers often retained a nominal link to their former `单位` and might receive a meager living stipend for a period of time before being officially left on their own. Comparison to Western Culture: In the West, being “laid off” is common but is typically viewed as an individual event tied to a specific company's performance. `下岗`, however, is a collective, national memory. It's more akin to the social impact of de-industrialization in the American “Rust Belt” or the UK's coal mine closures in the 1980s, where an entire industry and way of life for a region disappeared. For an entire generation of Chinese, `下岗` represents a profound loss of security, identity, and social contract.
While the peak wave of `下岗` is in the past, the term is still very much in use.
The connotation is almost always negative or sympathetic, evoking hardship and a lack of control over one's fate.