Biggest labor shortages in salesperson, courier, waiter jobs

Salespeople, couriers and waiters became the posts with the biggest labor shortages again, according to a list ranking the top 100 posts seeing labor shortages in the second quarter of 2020 from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the People's Daily reported on Wednesday.

Compared with the first quarter, the positions with the greatest need for workers had similar occupational compositions. Jobs involving operating manufacturing and transportation equipment, and posts in commercial and service sectors accounted for 77 percent of the top 100, forming the majority of the shortages. The top 10 also saw generally stable rankings in the second quarter, except that porters dropped from the top 10, and salespeople rose from 13th to ninth from last quarter.

However, the degree of shortage has changed in different sectors. The demand for workers manufacturing electric assembly connectors, printing circuits or similar jobs eased, while the need for workers in traditional manufacturing sectors such as metal heat treatment and foundry grew.

In addition, the number of people recruited for the 100 posts with the biggest labor shortages climbed from 1.38 million in the first quarter to 1.49 million in the second quarter. The number of job seekers also rose from 526,000 to 743,000, making the gap shrink from 850,000 in Q1 to 746,000 in Q2, down 12.2 percent, a remarkable ease in the supply and demand relationship in the market. The increase in both job seekers and recruitment posts reflects the improvement in China's market vitality, and indicates rapid recovery in the real economy.