On July 30, the People's Daily featured a report on Yichang's efforts to broaden employment opportunities in emerging fields. The article, titled "Hubei Yichang Expands Employment in Emerging Sectors, Develops Specialized Training—'Letting Career Choices Keep Pace With New Industry Trends,'" highlights how the city is adapting its workforce to the demands of modern industries.
Inside the Jiangnan Science and Innovation Park in Dianjun District, Yichang, hundreds of computers are neatly arranged in a spacious office area. Screens display various scenes—grey robots jumping, abstract road images, and video footage. Each workstation is occupied by a young person, clicking a mouse to annotate the visuals. Yang Tao, aged 36, walks slowly through the rows, occasionally stopping to offer technical guidance to junior staff.
Yang Tao transitioned from being an electrician to a data annotation specialist in 2023, starting from scratch. Less than three years into his new role, he has become a project manager at Hubei Yichang Dexing Tianxia Huichuang Big Data Co., Ltd. With a strong background in Yichang's chemical industry, Yang worked as an electrician for nearly a decade. After his company relocated in 2018, he chose to stay in Dianjun District to care for his family, but struggled to find stable employment in other sectors.
The rapid growth of Yichang's emerging industries, including new energy, new materials, and the digital economy, opened new career paths. Big data and computing power have become one of the city's four leading industries, each valued at 100 billion yuan. Yichang has also built the largest integrated storage and computing data center cluster in Hubei Province. The demand for workers in these emerging fields is rising, with digital economy roles increasing quickly. The city has established a grassroots employment service network, leveraging township and community staff, and developed the Yichang Digital Human Resources and Social Security Public Service Platform, which includes a neighborhood employment service system. This platform provides real-time job postings online and regular recruitment fairs offline, with targeted support for zero-employment families and landless farmers.
Community-level employment services are crucial. Li Jiahe Community in Dianjun District, where Yang Tao lives, is a resettlement area for land-expropriated villagers, facing significant employment needs. The community assigns a dedicated human resources liaison who conducts regular home visits to understand residents' job preferences. By coordinating resources from multiple departments, including human resources, industry, and parks, the community actively connects employers with job seekers, bringing opportunities directly to people's doorsteps.
Yang Tao's mother, a farmer, learned from the community's human resources liaison in early 2023 that the Central China Artificial Intelligence Data Annotation Center in Dianjun District was hiring data annotation specialists. Initially skeptical, she asked, "What is a data annotation specialist? Is it reliable?" Yang replied, "The digital industry is a sunrise industry. I've heard about this kind of work and want to try it!" He attended pre-employment skills training at the center and later joined Dexing Tianxia, a company based there. "The trainers come from the industry's front lines, and the training is very practical. After completing it, we can directly start working," Yang said.
Within the Jiangnan Science and Innovation Park, training institutions for data annotation specialists and AI trainers are integrated. Trainees learn data annotation in classrooms and practice operating robotic arms in labs, ensuring that training equates to immediate employment. Yichang guides designated training institutions to adjust their programs based on the demand for new professions. Dianjun District focuses on the digital industry, dispatching specialists to survey over 100 key enterprises to understand their hiring needs. It offers specialized training in 16 new areas, including AI trainers and drone operators. Using a model of "enterprise orders + student choice + industry-education integration," the district partners training schools with the Central China AI Data Annotation Center to form "order classes," allowing trainees like Yang Tao to secure jobs upon certification.
Yang Tao emphasizes that in emerging fields, maintaining a learning ability and interest is key to success. "The AI field constantly requires data annotation for new application scenarios. We need to keep learning to keep up with the industry's rapid progress," he said. His strong interest and dedication to AI have enabled him to grow quickly, advancing from a regular annotator to a project supervisor and then to a project manager. "New industries offer greater development opportunities. Letting career choices follow the trends in industrial development can lead to a better future," he noted.
Since the start of the year, the Central China AI Data Annotation Center has hired 300 new employees and provided training for 500 participants in projects like AI trainer programs, with a 90% pass rate. Yichang has established a mechanism to coordinate industry and employment, focusing on key manufacturing areas such as green chemicals, new materials, and new energy. It is pushing the chemical materials sector toward higher-end applications like new energy battery materials and electronic chemicals. With the growth of new quality productive forces, including the low-carbon economy and low-altitude economy, employment capacity in emerging fields has expanded significantly. This year, Yichang has posted over 23,000 jobs in emerging sectors, absorbing 15,000 workers.
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