China's digital economy expected to create 200m jobs by 2020

BEIJING - China's digital economy has the potential to create over 200 million jobs by 2020, the Economic Information Daily reported Tuesday.

"The development of the digital economy not only advances an employment upgrade but also brings about new job opportunities," Sun Ke, director of the Digital Economy Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), told the paper.

Sun said the digital transformation of traditional industries has become an important channel to create new jobs.

The secondary industry is the major sector that has huge potential to create new jobs through digital transformation, said the paper.

CAICT statistics showed that 50.54 million workers engaged in the digital transformation of the secondary industry in 2017, only accounting for 22.4 percent of the total employment of the secondary industry.

However, the potential of such transformation to create jobs has not yet been fully explored, with challenges such as a supply gap of digital talents and lack of diversified employment services, according to the paper.

Sun suggested that China should foster a new model of the digital economy, such as big data and artificial intelligence to create more job opportunities, and give more policy support for employees engaged in the digital economy.