Policy digest

Shortage of skilled professionals looming

A shortage of highly skilled professionals is looming in the emerging sectors, according to a quarterly ranking released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

According to the list of the 100 most in-demand jobs during the second quarter, nearly half the 30 new professions on the list were related to sectors such as software, manufacturing and information technology.

The ministry said these occupations have "a high degree of specialization".

In particular, there has been a growing shortage of technicians in fields such as smart manufacturing engineering, communication engineering and automatic control engineering, the list shows.

Official data show that China's surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5 percent last month, 0.7 percentage points lower than the same month last year.

In the first half of this year, 6.98 million new urban jobs were created, accounting for 63.5 percent of the national annual target.

High demand remains in the service sector for sales representatives, catering staff, security guards, cleaners and marketing specialists, among others.

The ranking is based on data collected from 102 public employment service agencies monitored by the ministry.

Construction to begin on regional health centers

This year, construction will begin on 16 regional health centers in an attempt to ease the surging demand for doctors' consultations, rectify complaints about the imbalanced distribution of medical resources and provide easier access to quality medical services.

The central government has already established regional health centers in eight provinces.

"By doing so, the services provided by regional medical centers will generally cover all provincial-level regions by next year," Li Bin, deputy head of the National Health Commission, told a July 24 conference on the reform on medicine and the healthcare system in Hefei, Anhui province.

In addition, the country will push forward the establishment of national medical centers and national research centers for clinical medicine, Li said.

The efforts are in line with a requirement from the State Council, China's Cabinet, as outlined in a May circular aimed at balancing the distribution of medical resources and improving the tiered diagnosis-and-treatment system.

The major task of the country's medical reform during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) is to ensure that patients with major and serious illnesses receive proper medical services without having to leave their native provincial-level regions, said Xu Shuqiang, an NHC official.

Departments focus on platform workers' rights

In light of growing calls for the protection of the rights of workers in emerging sectors and occupations, a guideline aimed at strengthening such rights was released on July 22 by eight ministry-level departments.

The document stressed that platform companies should shoulder their due responsibilities in protecting their employees' lawful rights and interests, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, one of the bodies involved.

With the rapid development of the platform economy, there has been a massive rise in the number of people engaged in new occupations, such as online car-hailing drivers and internet marketing specialists, said the guideline, which noted that such workers face new situations and problems in protecting their rights and interests.

It also called for efforts to improve policies to regulate the labor market and ensure equal job opportunities, improve the guaranteed minimum income system and safeguard employees' rights to rest.