Big data to help workforce mobility, innovation

A national big-data platform for human resources will be created to promote the orderly mobility of talent and encourage innovation, according to a guideline published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on Monday.

The guideline stresses "the decisive role" of the market in promoting talent mobility, while saying that the government will play a role in macro-control and protecting fair competition. Sixteen measures are included in the guideline to help improve the job market, such as better legal regulation of the market and offering talent more quality services.

Apart from building the national big-data platform for human resources, the ministry also aims to build a mechanism for forecasting the demand for talent and giving out early warnings, and to compile a catalog concerning talent that is urgently needed.

More channels for jobs in government or State-run units will be accessible to talent actively serving in nonpublic companies, it said.

The guideline added that talent in State-level key areas such as information technology and aerospace engineering, or those working in backcountry areas, such as Qinghai province in Northwest China, are required to submit applications for approval if they want to change jobs.

In a news release, an unnamed official of the ministry's department of human resource mobility management, said an improved market-based mechanism lays a solid foundation for the orderly mobility of talent and job-seekers.

"The job market ... matched 203 million jobs to job hunters and job hoppers," the official said.

By the end of 2017, the number of employees nationwide reached about 776 million, 370,000 more than in 2016. Of those, more than 424 million worked in urban areas, the ministry said.

It said that 13.6 million jobs were created last year, 100,000 more than in 2017.