New business sectors ease employment woes

Zhang Han, a former bank clerk, now writes scripts for an emerging business－escape rooms－the number of which are doubling year-onyear and creating tons of new jobs.

Zhang's employer, national chain escape room brand Mr. X, has opened 18 sites across the country, employing more than 400 full-time staff, including professional actors and directors.

Other novel practices, such as pet cakes, experience service providers of the Han ethnic group's traditional costumes and paid study rooms, are also mushrooming across the land. The vigorous development of new business models has given birth to plenty of new occupations, thus helping relieve employment pressure among youth.

According to a report by Meituan Research Institute－established by Meituan Dianping, an on-demand services platform－the trading volume of new forms of businesses on the platform in the last four years increased 2.7 times to 483.74 billion yuan ($72.51 billion).

"These small, but fast-growing budding industries have helped young people open shops and set up their own businesses," said Lai Youwei, vice-president of Meituan and director of its research institute.

Lai said the emergence of these new occupations is partly due to mounting demand from different age groups, especially the younger generation.

New businesses have also created new jobs, and more importantly, they can improve employment quality thanks to the learning of new skills and therefore boost incomes, he said.

Meituan said there are more than 70 new occupations on the platform alone, including take-out distributors, escape room designers and digital business managers.

Paid study rooms ranked first in terms of trading volume growth with an annual growth rate of 22.6 times from 2018 to 2019.

The report added that about half of the sector's participants choose their occupation because of passion for the job, but "pay is also competitive".

More than one-third of jobs in these new trades enjoy monthly incomes of above 9,000 yuan, and about 20 percent exceed 12,000 yuan.

The coronavirus crisis also imperiled these nascent stores, but 48 percent of new professional practitioners are confident that their industries have stronger risk resistance capability.

Zhang Han of Mr. X said he also found new staff in the innovative occupation generally have stronger passion for what they do compared to previous working experiences.

Instead of a group of people solving puzzles in highly decorated rooms, which are often transformed from residential apartments, escape rooms have grown into a unique immersive gaming industry, he said.

Sequel stories, professional actors and countless themes mimicking real-life adventures are becoming a mature entertainment category taking up young people's leisure time.

In the future, Zhang plans to bring the new business sector to third and fourth-tier cities.

He is now preparing for a second escape room in Shenzhen－a venue of 600 square meters and employing 18, including directors, actors, scriptwriters and stage designers.

He said the new business form is incredibly popular among acting major graduates.

The industry has carved out a flexible career promotion path and provides an incentive.

Graduates with professional training can earn up to 17,000 yuan monthly, while others are offered about half of that and training is available for amateurs who are fond of the vocation, he said.

In the catering industry, the number of delivery staff had rocketed to 2.95 million on the Meituan platform alone as of August this year, thanks to the prevalence of online orders and take-out services.

However, delivery drivers are not the only new occupation derived from the digital upgrading of the catering industry－a profession dedicated to take-out services and product management is also gaining traction among restaurants.

In October, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and Meituan training school jointly presented official certificates to 62 professional take-out order managers, the first batch of its kind.

Zhang Shan, a dedicated take-out business manager of barbecue restaurant brand Tantang in Shenzhen, said his job includes online shop decor, designing products for internet-based orders, coordinating online promotional campaigns, providing responses and increasing online marketing.

He said online take-out orders could bring several million yuan in revenue each month to the brand's 20 restaurants.

Shops with pet experiences are another new form of business. In September, the number of new pet hotels on Meituan increased 30 percent compared with last year, while searches for pet funerals on the platform roughly doubled.

Sui Zhiyu, a pastry chef with more than a decade of experience, said he found many younger consumers consider their pets their family members, so he decided to focus on the pet cake market.