Industry serves as the foundation for employment. The recently released "15th Five-Year Plan for Implementing the Employment-First Strategy" outlines measures to strengthen coordination between industry and employment, stabilize job numbers in labor-intensive sectors, expand employment capacity in the service industry, and tap into the job-creation potential of emerging fields. Currently, initiatives to stabilize, expand, and improve the quality of jobs are being implemented, with many areas working hard to uncover employment potential across all channels and sectors, using industrial development to drive job growth.
In Neiguanying Town, Dingxi, Gansu, "Dingxi Wide Noodle Master" Lian Weiming is busy processing potato starch. After several steps, the semi-translucent Dingxi wide noodles begin to take shape. "Our area is suitable for growing potatoes, and the Dingxi wide noodle industry is an extension of the potato industry. Thanks to this industrial development, our team of 'Dingxi Wide Noodle Masters' is gradually growing, and more people are finding employment and increasing their incomes as a result," Lian Weiming said.
It is understood that Dingxi, Gansu, is steadily advancing the construction of projects such as a wide noodle industrial park and an industrial integration demonstration base. Leading enterprises are undergoing upgrades and expansions, the layout of chain stores continues to expand, and supporting upstream and downstream industrial chains are being continuously improved. Currently, over 130 Dingxi wide noodle processing entities have a total production capacity exceeding 250,000 tons, and the "Dingxi Wide Noodle Master" labor brand drives employment for 140,000 people across the entire industrial chain.
From Dingxi wide noodles to Zhongning goji berries, from Jinxiang garlic to Hengzhou jasmine flowers, many regions are accelerating the development of modern agriculture, fostering distinctive county-level industries, cultivating and strengthening labor brands, and continuously building a county-level economic system and employment spatial layout with the county as the hub and townships as the nodes.
At Zhejiang Zhoushan Navigation School, training courses for deck ratings and engine ratings are opening one after another. After completing the training and passing assessments, trainees can obtain vocational skill certificates and no longer need to worry about finding jobs. Since the beginning of this year, Zhoushan has continued to promote the "Gathering 100,000 Seafarers in Zhoushan" project, with a preliminary full industrial chain for seafarer services covering "attraction, cultivation, retention, utilization, and transition" taking shape. From January to May, 1,016 newly recruited and insured seafarers were introduced, a year-on-year increase of 235%.
Not long ago, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and three other departments issued a document supporting employment and entrepreneurship in the marine economy. It proposed focusing on consolidating and enhancing the advantages of the marine equipment manufacturing industry, developing modern shipping services, expanding emerging marine industries, and building a high-quality seafarer workforce to increase the international market share for seafaring labor.
"Improving the industrial chain for seafarer services is beneficial for enabling more seafarers to better serve industries such as shipping, logistics, and shipbuilding," said Liu Tao, Director of the Zhoushan Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. Zhoushan will vigorously attract and cultivate seafarer service formats such as crew dispatching, ship manning, and maritime legal consulting, enhance the specialization and digitalization of seafarer services, and promote employment and entrepreneurship for more workers in the marine economy sector.
Developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions is an important pathway to creating jobs. In the mountainous region of Lvliang, Shanxi, approximately 500 data annotators are gathered at the data annotation center of Shanxi Shenglin Group, labeling road signs for autonomous driving models, classifying agricultural pest and disease images, and marking specific parts of surgical instruments.
The development of the data annotation industry is profoundly influencing the local employment landscape and industrial chain ecosystem in Lvliang. Upstream, the region relies on projects like smart agriculture and coal mine safety monitoring to accumulate original data resources. Midstream, enterprises like Shanxi Shenglin Group are establishing standardized annotation processes and developing intelligent annotation tools. Downstream, the annotated high-quality data flows into various AI application scenarios. This chain has already given rise to multiple job roles, including data collectors, annotation quality inspectors, and AI training engineers.
"Data annotation is not only the 'basic ingredient' for artificial intelligence but also a 'new rice bowl' for employment," said Hao Shuai, the head of Shanxi Shenglin Group. The company is not only building data annotation bases and training data annotators but also collaborating with educational institutions to establish practical training bases and develop hands-on courses, making the employment space increasingly broad.
More explorations are underway to develop industries and promote employment:
Expanding employment opportunities in the consumer sector: In Guizhou, the integration of bridge construction and tourism at the Huajiang Canyon Bridge continues to advance, with diverse and exciting tourism routes directly providing over 400 jobs and indirectly driving employment for over 2,000 people in surrounding areas.
Intensifying efforts to drive employment through investment projects: In Qinghai, the sodium-ion battery and energy storage equipment manufacturing project in the Haidong Industrial Park is accelerating construction. While helping to build a new energy storage industrial chain, it is expected to create jobs for over 700 people upon completion.
Increasing employment capacity in the public services sector: In Shaanxi, the construction of industrial chains for elderly care, childcare, and domestic services is continuously being strengthened. Relevant departments are organizing employment training and capacity-building programs covering elderly care, infant and toddler care, domestic services, and elderly care service consumption subsidies to address personnel shortages and expand employment numbers.
"The fundamental solution to employment issues lies in development. By making the 'cake' of economic development bigger, we can better expand the 'cake' of employment," said Fan Xianwei, a researcher at the Institute of Social Development Research of the National Development and Reform Commission. By firmly establishing the goal of employment priority and enhancing the synergy between macroeconomic policies and employment, we can better construct a development model that is friendly to employment and increase the employment-driving capacity of development.
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