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The home service industry in Beijing is expected to become more attractive both as a job and as an
industry.
Sources at the Beijing People's Political Consultative Conference said resistance to home service
work is melting away from minds of the city's laidoff workers. The Conference suggested the
establishment of municipal (市政的) centers which supervise property management, household mending
and installation, and house keeping services. Modern city life is creating a need for home services. This
will create job opportunities for laidoff workers, said vice director of the Social Judicial Committee of
the Conference.
Beijing residents have long desired a home service industry. The demand is expected to drive new
economic growth. There are few high quality home help services in Beijing and customers are always
complaining.
In the past, few laidoff workers worked as home helpers, jobs largely taken by young women from
the countryside. At the same time, some city residents have not felt safe trusting rural girls with modern
household machines or with their small children. Many people would pay more for reliable house keepers who are more familiar with city life, but they have had no way of getting one, even though the city is home
to thousands of laidoff workers.
By the end of June this year, there were 30,600 jobless workers in the city. Most of them are women
in their 40's, who are not blessed with particular skills and who have had their work ethics shaped by the
planned economy. Many of them were at a loss when they first realized they had lost their jobs and a
way of life they had got used to for decades.
They never imagined being laidoff by state; they never considered other kinds of employment. For
them, the private sector (领域) meant taking risks; housekeeping implied lower social status. Gao
yunfang, 44, is a pioneer who is breaking the ice. She sells the Beijing Morning Post in the morning, and
works at two households in the afternoon. She earns 1,000 yuan per month.
So she no longer worries about her daughter's tuition at a university in Shanghai.

1. What is talked about in the passage?
A. Home service.
B. Modern city life.
C. Laidoff workers.
D. Social status.

2. Why didn't the laidoff workers like to do home services in the past?
A. Low salary.
B. Lower social status.
C. Dirty working condition.
D. Too much extra work.

3. Why were many laidoff workers at a loss?
A. Because they didn't get used to the new way of life.
B. Because they are too old to find a new job.
C. Because they dislike being laid off.
D. Because they think they lost their social status.

3. In which ways is home service industry good for our society?
A. It meets the needs of modern life.
B. It provides work opportunities for the laidoff worker
C. It is a new industry.
D. A and B.

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