ABSTRACT
This chapter explains sense of changing political expectations about unemployment by showing how they were redefined over time through associated changes in the kinds of work that constituted employment. It examines various reconceptions of unemployment during the post-stalinist reform era. It shows that how unemployment was redefined in terms of social policies to regulate the inflow or outflow of marginal workers into the labor force, a desirable two-way flow between households and employment. The chapter provides lay-offs for more core workers were redefined as part of a policy of planned reallocations of labor. The increase in job switching was seen as hurting the old guard to the benefit of the migrating birds who frequently changed jobs. The high-turnover of migrating birds was blamed for deteriorating work discipline, since workers compelled into great exertion could instead find other jobs with better terms.
