With the help of her husband, Li also employs a chef and a boy to deliver meals from the shop which prepares lunch for more than 200 employees in a nearby office building.

According to Li, she takes home some 4,000 yuan (US$482) in earnings from the small business each month.

Li still remembers the gnawing scene four years ago when she, together with her parents, her husband and her younger brother, were laid off from a local cement plant.

"On leaving the plant, I cried a lot, feeling the sky was falling down upon us," she recalled.

At that time, both she and her husband were less than 40 years old, but without jobs, they lost their life's source of income, which meant they could not afford the education of their only child.

Assisted by the neighborhood committee, Li soon got back on her feet. At first, she pulled a hand cart selling ice-cream on the street, earning about 1,000 yuan a month (US$121), while her husband found a job taking care of a car park in a residential unit, earning 800 yuan (US$96) a month.

To earn more money in preparation for supporting her son's future college education, Li used her savings and subsidies they received when they were laid off to rent a stand at a night fair, retailing garments.

The coupled succeeded, and their savings kept rising to great extent.

"Having been confined to the cement plant for a long time, I felt I could not live on once I were thrown out of the factory," said Li, who said she found the outside world quite colorful after she went to face the market directly.

Li Yuqiong soon found that many companies inside the office buildings in Tianhe had difficulty offering meals to workers.

So the couple rented the 20-square-meter room and turned it into a fast food shop using their savings and government loans. To reduce costs, the couple rise early and travel long distances to buy fish and vegetables at the wholesale market in the suburbs.

"It is toilsome, yet we are happy seeing the income increase day by day," said Li. Their monthly earning is much more than that they earned at the cement plant. In addition to sponsoring their son's college education, the couple can also save money.

"As long as you can bear hardships and are willing to use your head, you will always find a way out," said Li.

"My best wish is that my son will become a white-collar employee in a luxury office building when he graduates from university," said Li Yuqiong.

According to the reemployment model, her younger brother has also become the owner of a small business which specializes in repairing electrical appliances, doors and windows.

Ma Jianxiao, head of Training and Employment Section of Guangzhou City, said that encouraging the start-up of new businesses is an effective measure the city government has adopted to promote employment.

In the meantime, the government has offered supportive employment services, such as listing laid-off workers in the social security system, establishing a fund for the promotion of employment, offering insurance against employment risks, tax reduction and exemption, and small-sum loans.

The number of registered unemployed was 290,000 at the end of last year, of whom 177,000 people have found new jobs by now. And the number of the unemployed now stands at 90,000, according to Ma.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2002)