ANXIETY over the future has deepened among political indoctrination workers in China, as ideology continued to lose ground to the goals of the market economy.
Many holders of the Communist Party-issued Certificate of Political Work have found their colleagues in factories have a better chance of getting a job elsewhere after retirement.
Even welders, drivers and electronic workers had been in great demand, a cadre in the party's propaganda department lamented. He asked: ''Who would give me a job when I retire?'' Ideological education was made a profession in April 1990 when the party introduced a regulation giving accreditation to political workers.
The rapid growth of a competition-oriented market economy changed everything.
The disquiet among political workers also has been attributed to their poor salary and fringe benefits.
Among the 22 grades of posts in an enterprise, for instance, a deputy director ranks sixth, while political workers rate 20th - like telephone operators and sanitation workers.
