The digital economy of China has long played a significant role in enhancing work prospects, streamlining the employment hierarchy, and generating fresh approaches to resolving labour market challenges.
The recent publication “Research Report on China’s Disability Care (2023)” made note of the fact that the emergence of the digital economy era has given rise to the prospect of changing the job structure for the disabled.
Reports cited that with the rise of the Internet, the digital economy has created a lot of new jobs, and the ability of related businesses to take on workers has grown quickly. This has also made it easier for college students with disabilities to find work.
On one side, it illustrates the significance of the digital economy for high-quality employment. The digital economy has currently given rise to a substantial number of new industries, formats, and business models, as well as a significant number of new employment types.
The number of jobs supported by the digital economy will reach 449 million in 2030, according to the report “2023 Frontiers of China’s Digital Economy: Platforms and High-Quality Full Employment” published in February of this year.
The digital economy is inextricably linked to the actual economy. Through the coordinated growth of the digital industry, production efficiency is increased, scale expansion is supported, and old occupations and positions are endowed with new implications, such as online doctors and online vehicle drivers. Workers’ freedom of choice opens additional opportunities for different groups to find work.
At the same time, there are some issues that the nation has addressed immediately in the process of promoting employment in the digital economy. For example, there is a significant shortage of digital talent, inadequate protection of labour rights and interests for new types of employment groups, and employment services that adapt to labour mobility and diversification of employment methods must be improved.
In this regard, it is critical to capitalise on the digital economy’s potential to create new jobs, update the labour structure, and encourage higher quality and fuller employment of relevant talents.
Also, encourage the rapid development of the digital industry and the development of digital skills. Continually promote new formats and models of digital production, cultivate new economic growth points, and create more emerging employment opportunities in emerging industries such as the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI).
For China, promoting the deep integration of the Internet, big data, AI, and the real economy, encourage the digital transformation of traditional industries, and encourage more workers to switch careers to increase employment. In addition to promoting digital knowledge and skills education at all school levels and establishing and enhancing a multi-level and multi-type digital talent training system.
Alternatively, strengthen the construction of digital employment service platforms and enhance the employment security system that conforms to the laws of the digital economy. Through legislation that clarifies the labour relationship identification mechanism for new employment forms of workers, improves their labour rights and interests protection measures, and adapts the social insurance system to the characteristics of digital work.
Also, making detailed regulations on standard working hours and social insurance payment for digital practitioners, solving problems such as account transfer connection issues and risk compensation issues faced by flexible employees, and strengthening social security for new employment forms.
The nation also implemented “Internet +” public employment and entrepreneurship services that resulted to strengthen the construction of national public employment information service platforms, enhancing mobile terminal applications, developing an intelligent service system that combines policy interpretation, business management, and consultation as well as enhancing digital public employment and entrepreneurship service capabilities.
