Digitalization of local services spells jobs

"The emergence of new jobs with higher technical contents, such as food delivery planner and merchant backstage analyst, will help upgrade the local services and bring about new work opportunities to people with different professional backgrounds," said Lin Lei, director of service innovation research department at the Center for Innovation and Development, which is under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

More than 2.7 million riders across the country gained incomes in 2018 from Meituan Dianping, another food delivery and lifestyle services platform, according to an employment report from Meituan's research department.

The figure was up about half a million from 2017. Around 30 percent of the workers, who mostly deliver meals riding electric bikes, earn more than 5,000 yuan a month. Most of them were born in the 1980s or 1990s. And 92 percent of them are male.

The report said 77 percent of the deliverymen come from rural areas in Henan, Anhui and Sichuan provinces. Furthermore, 35 percent of them have other sources of income, while 52 percent of the riders work less than four hours a day. Some 39 percent work four to eight hours a day.

A large number of people are willing to work as deliverymen due to the flexible working hours and guaranteed incomes that this field offers.

About 50 percent of the deliverymen have become the major source of family incomes, and 60 percent are married and have kids, while the spouses of 40 percent of the drivers stay home to look after children or parents.

The report said about 45 percent of them deliver over 20 orders a day and 40 percent travel over 50 kilometers, the length of Beijing's Fourth Ring Road.

The data also showed that 15 percent of them are university graduates. Although they spend most of their time on the road, more than 40 percent used their limited spare time for learning and self-development, with 9 percent choosing online classes and 2 percent attending offline lessons.

"The platform economy reduces various transaction costs and better matches the demand with supply," said Zhou Guangsu, an associate professor with the School of Labor and Human Resources at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

Zhou explained this has not only stimulated the growth of consumption but promoted the upgrade of consumption, besides injecting new vitality into the economy and boosting employment.

He also said the new jobs that have emerged in recent years, including that of deliverymen, internet anchors, digital operations in-charge, are all examples of how the platform economy has improved the size and quality of the job market.