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New jobs added to work list
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-12-13 09:29
China's dramatic social changes have created a whole new list of professions
that defy traditional descriptions.
The Ministry of Labor and Social
Security announced 10 new professions and provided detailed descriptions of
these jobs earlier this month in Shanghai.
The new vocations are business
designers, exhibition designers, digital video producers, scenery designers,
mold designers, architecture model designers, furniture designers, customer
service managers, pet caretakers and animated-image designers.
It's all part
of a plan to set standards for the people who work in these professions. The
standards help ensure quality service and also serve as a guide for job
training.
The profession list, it turns out, is a two-way street. As new
jobs are added, old ones are tossed out - among them pan repairers - in even
larger numbers. China now has 1, 857 professions, 3,000 fewer than it had five
years ago.
Meanwhile, specialists helping diners to order at restaurants,
private detectives, meteorological agents, professional apologizers and people
who deliver thank-yous are mushrooming in Chinese cities.
In addition,
government administrations are studying professions such as tree protectors, toy
designers and information security administrators and preparing to recognize
them as well.
"Only an internally dynamic society can breed so many new
professions," said Vice Cultural Minister Zhou Heping.
Shanghai municipal
government recently announced that official descriptions of 65 new professions
would be released soon, and local residents were encouraged to help guild the
list.
But these avant-garde jobs are not just confined to the big coastal
cities. In Harbin in northeast China's heavily industrial Heilongjiang Province,
the profession of marriage analyst is attracting increasing
attention.
When Zhang Liying started providing guidance on marriage
several years ago, most of her clients were asking for simple measures to untie
their marital knots.
"Now, they want suggestions on how to avoid divorce,
and many have come to me for help far ahead of a marriage breakup," said
Zhang.
China's fast-developing telecommunication industry has also become
a hot job-generator.
There are nearly 200 million mobile phone users in
China, more than 30 percent of whom say text and image mobile phone messages are
"indispensable" in their daily lives.
Writers who are good at composing
messages are now in great demand.
Popular messages are usually smartly
worded jokes, puns and greetings as well as hit images and pleasant ring
tones.
Shen Qiang, a full-time mobile phone message writer in Yancheng
City in east China's Jiangsu Province, now earns some 6,000 yuan (US$730)
composing messages for a major Chinese portal.
More down-to-earth jobs
have also appeared, such as substitute drivers, who help clients with their cars
in special situations.
Wu Junqiang, a substitute driver in Beijing,
enjoys piloting cars and their owners back home, a service especially popular
with those who've had too much to drink. Wu and his colleagues are occasionally
frustrated with some clients' bad manners, however.
"Things will improve
as the profession becomes more widely known and accepted," said
Wu.
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