What are China’s hottest jobs as AI reshapes the labour market?
The structural shift in China’s labour market will make digital skills mandatory as new opportunities emerge and traditional work tapers off
As jobseekers struggle to reconcile shrinking traditional opportunities with a labour market in flux, Beijing has laid out a road map in the next five-year plan for reshaping its employment landscape amid demographic shifts through innovation-led industries, upgraded services and regionally balanced development.
In this explainer, the Post outlines the 10 most promising directions for China’s job market over the next five years – distilled from analysis by state news agency Xinhua – and breaks down the structural forces that will determine where the strongest labour market opportunities can be found.
Emerging industries as job reservoirs
The next five years will be defined by a transition “from one to 10”, meaning large-scale industrialisation and large-scale hiring, experts said. In the low-altitude economy alone, demand for drone pilots could hit one million, while roles from flight control engineers to air-traffic algorithm designers will fill out a new full-stack talent chain.
New job openings in Chinese cities show that AI, new-generation information technology, as well as new energy are generating significant demands for new employment.
AI to replace, create jobs
“Dark factories” and autonomous driving are replacing repetitive labour, but the broader reality is job expansion in high-value AI roles. Over 20 of the 72 new occupations announced by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in the past five years are AI-related, with each expected to create 300,000 to 500,000 jobs.