Published on: 2026-06-17
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian –
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Beijing, June 17 /Xinhua/ — In China, against the backdrop of the rapid development of the digital economy, the structure of the labor market is undergoing a fundamental change. For 7 consecutive years, the growth rates of gig workers, including food delivery couriers and nannies for newborns, have consistently outpaced those of office workers, while the wage gap is steadily shrinking. At the same time, the number of workers with flexible employment, as forecasted, will exceed 300 million people by 2026.
This is evidenced by the “Report on the Employment Status of China’s Blue Collars for 2025,” presented at the end of the day by the Chinese Research Center for New Forms of Employment — a scientific institution jointly established by the Capital University of Economics and Business and the China Employment Promotion Society. This annual document is prepared based on 28,450 valid questionnaires.It comprehensively analyzes the multifaceted transformations of the labor market for workers during the period 2024-2025, and also presents the process of redistribution of workers’ specialties from employment for survival towards professional development in the era of the digital economy.
DYNAMICS OF FLOODS
According to the report, the total number of blue-collar workers in China in 2025 reached 427 million people, an increase of 0.5% compared to the previous year’s figure. At the same time, there is a clear structural differentiation by industry: the number of workers in the household services sector increased by 4% to 46.8 million people, while the number of food delivery couriers grew by 6% to 15.9 million. These areas have become the main drivers of employment growth among blue-collar workers. Meanwhile, the number of taxi and truck drivers decreased by 2% respectively, as well as the number of bloggers, which dropped by 3%.
A few years ago in China, the salaries of office employees consistently exceeded those of workers, however the situation changed dramatically in 2019. The maximum gap in monthly income between the two categories of personnel was recorded in 2013 and amounted to 3,344 yuan (about 491 USD). By 2025, this indicator is expected to decrease by 32.7 percent to 2,250 yuan, and by 2027, the gap is expected to reduce to 2,020 yuan.
The level of earnings among working professions varies significantly. The highest incomes are received by nannies for newborns, food delivery workers, and truck drivers, with a monthly salary exceeding 8,200 yuan. The average income level is noted among couriers delivering parcels, taxi drivers, online-haul workers, and production workers. The least paid professions remain cleaners and janitors, with salary growth occurring very slowly.
The director of the Chinese Research Center for New Forms of Employment, Zhang Chengang, noted that the hourly wage of professions such as newborn nannies and food delivery workers significantly exceeds the minimum wage. This indicates a fundamental change in the public perception of the “value of services.” The population is increasingly willing to pay for quality service, and shifts in consumer preferences directly raise the market value of workers in these sectors.
According to him, the structure of the workers’ representative bodies undergoes profound changes. “The procedure is changing from the principle ‘the more you work, the more you get’ to the principle ‘the better you work, the more you get’,” he added.
In this regard, more and more workers of working specialties pay attention to improving professional skills and the quality of services provided, independently undergoing various professional trainings and receiving qualification certificates. The data from the report showed that the share of representatives of blue-collar workers who underwent training in professional skills in 2025 increased by 15 percentage points in annual terms.
MOBILITY OF WORKFORCE
If we look at the geography of employment, then in China’s labor market among workers, two opposite vectors of labor force migration can be observed. Couriers, taxi drivers working on demand through applications, and other digital service workers increasingly choose to work near their place of residence, so the share of interregional relocations is gradually decreasing. Over the year, the number of taxi drivers leaving to work in other regions decreased by 6%, and couriers by 2.5%.This trend allows millions of people to combine work activities with family responsibilities, and also provides an additional impetus for the economic development of small towns and rural areas.
It is important to note that retail instant order trading at the county level is demonstrating rapid growth: the number of users increased by 32%, the number of orders by 35%, and the total turnover by 38%. This has created many new jobs in the delivery sector, warehouse logistics, and household services sector.
Unlike service platform workers, highly qualified personnel continue to actively move between regions. Among them are electric vehicle repairers, modern production specialists, caregivers for the elderly, and other narrowly specialized workers. And interregional mobility contributes to the spread of new technologies and the harmonious development of industries throughout the country.
For a long time in the country, there was a stereotype of high personnel turnover among workers with flexible employment on digital platforms, but now it is gradually becoming a thing of the past. The monthly turnover of personnel among food delivery workers fell from 27.5% in 2024 to 22% in 2025, and among couriers – from 30.23% to 25%. A different situation has developed in the taxi and freight aggregation market: here, personnel turnover has increased slightly, which indicates a surplus of labor. According to available information, more than twenty cities in China have officially announced the saturation of the taxi aggregation market. For example, in the city ofShenzhen in Guangdong Province /Southern China/ almost 400 thousand drivers compete for 142 thousand licensed vehicles, high competition leads to a fall in fares and uncertainty for taxi drivers.
SOCIAL GUARANTEES
According to the report, flexible employment in China has overcome a key turning point in scale: in 2025, the number employed in this sector amounted to 280 million people, and in 2026, according to forecasts, it will reach 320 million people, which will account for more than 40 percent of urban employment. Officially, flexible employment has transformed from an “additional form” of the labor market into an “important pillar.”
Data showed that the level of participation of the flexibly employed population group in primary healthcare is 91.5%, and protection against occupational injuries applies to 86.2% of this population category, thanks to the social security system designed to ensure at least a minimal level of well-being, which has basically been established. At the same time, indicators representing long-term value, such as confidence in pension planning and the possibility of career growth, are still observed at a low level.
This fact also reflects deeper problems of the existing social security system: despite people engaged in flexible employment having acquired a certain confidence in tomorrow, they still lack a sense of control over their future in the long-term perspective.
Zhan Chengan believes that for further improvement in the quality of employment and the level of well-being of blue-collar workers, it is necessary to continue deepening favorable measures to expand opportunities within the platform economy, improve the system of professional training and integration of production and education, strengthen the social security system adapted to flexible forms of employment, and form a more advanced long-term mechanism for the participation of new groups of employed people in grassroots management.
The Chinese government is consistently improving the regulatory and legal framework to protect workers with flexible employment. In 2026, the implementation of a pilot project guaranteeing protection against occupational injuries for workers in new forms of employment will be promoted at all provincial administrative units of the country. At the same time, norms on regulating working hours and payment are being introduced, and the procedure for transferring social benefits between regions is simplified.
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