Original title: New blue-collar stable employment, "reskilling" is worth paying attention to.
Recently, the "2023 China Blue-Collar Group Employment Research Report" released by the China New Employment Form Research Center of Capital University of Economics shows that the average monthly salary of blue-collar groups in 2023 will be about 6,000 yuan, an increase of more than 2 times in 10 years, and the salary gap with white-collar workers will be further narrowed. Nearly 7 percent of blue-collar workers have a monthly income between 5,000 yuan and 8,000 yuan, among which confinement wives, truck drivers and delivery workers have a higher monthly income, ranking among the top three blue-collar groups.
In our public coverage and discussions, the term "blue-collar" does not appear too often, and is replaced by various subdivisions of jobs and occupations, such as construction workers, factory workers, truck drivers, and so on. But in fact, it's a huge group. At present, according to statistics, the size of China's blue-collar group reaches 400 million, accounting for 53% of the total employed population in the country. With the continuous development of China's economy and the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, the composition of blue-collar workers has also continued to change. Among them, in addition to the traditional blue-collar workers concentrated in the manufacturing industry, such as construction workers, the "new blue-collar" group is also accelerating its rise and growth. Thanks to the emergence and development of the platform economy, flexible employment has become an increasingly important part of the "new blue-collar workers".
Whether it is a traditional blue-collar worker or a "new blue-collar", the main body is migrant workers. The previous generation of migrant workers chose to leave their hometowns and move into the cities in order to obtain higher incomes and find greater development. The new generation of migrant workers prefer jobs with a high degree of time freedom, and working as a food delivery rider in the city has become the first choice for work. However, an interesting finding is that the report shows that as the catering and food delivery markets expand deeper into third- and fourth-tier cities, the cross-provincial mobility of blue-collar gig workers has reversed, and the "new blue-collar workers" such as waiters, food delivery workers, and ride-hailing drivers are more inclined to local employment.
On the one hand, it reflects the rise of China's county economy, especially the sinking and penetration of new business forms, and the flexible jobs provided by them have played the role of employment "reservoir" and "stabilizer" to a certain extent. For workers, in terms of local consumption levels, the wages they earn are not only very competitive, but they also do not have to face the culture shock and embarrassment of their parents' integration into the city, and their sense of well-being is greatly improved. For local governments, the outflow of labor from outflow to return also means that they have greater potential and resilience in terms of expanding consumption.
With the continuous development of new forms of business and the renewal of social employment concepts, the "new blue-collar workers" will continue to expand. How to better protect their labor rights and interests has become more urgent and important. In July 2021, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and others jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Safeguarding the Labor Security Rights and Interests of Workers in New Employment Forms", and broke the ice from the work-related injury insurance system.
Another issue that is also worth paying attention to is that for the new forms of technology-driven digital economy, the skills of new business practitioners are "replaced" in tandem with the improvement of the level of intelligence. In the case of food delivery riders, their existing skills are becoming less important as intelligent systems and devices are iterated and added, and there are few opportunities for them to acquire new skills in their current roles.
Like traditional blue-collar workers, the "new blue-collar" also faces the problem of skill upgrading, which has been partially masked or diluted for some time by the advantages of the new business format, such as free employment time and competitive salaries. Accelerating the creation of conditions and environments to give blue-collar groups the opportunity to participate in re-skilled learning, and further, providing institutional guarantees for lifelong learning is an inevitable requirement for the development of a skilled society and the digital economy. (Guangming Net commentator).