my country's job market is currently undergoing profound changes. The service industry has replaced manufacturing and has become the industry that absorbs the largest number of jobs.
Data from the "China Statistical Yearbook 2025" shows that by the end of 2024, the number of people employed in the service industry will reach 360 million, accounting for 48.8% of the total number of employed people in the country, an increase of 2.5 percentage points from 46.3% in 2018, and the employment ratio ranks first among the three industries.
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This change is no accident. It stems from the continuous adjustment of my country's industrial structure and the continuous expansion of service demand driven by residents' consumption upgrades. It is also inseparable from the large number of new jobs created by the deep integration of the digital economy and life services. These factors work together to profoundly change workers’ employment choices and career development paths.
Nowadays, many people take the initiative to break out of the inherent career model. Some people have transformed from teachers to senior nannies, and some have crossed over from white-collar workers in foreign companies to become pet beauticians. Career boundaries are constantly expanding, and employment options are becoming more diverse.
Policies at the national level aimed at developing the service industry and promoting employment in the service industry are also constantly being improved.
In recent years, a series of policies have been implemented one after another, from implementing actions to improve the quality and capacity of the service industry, cultivating new growth points for service consumption, to promoting the deep integration of modern service industries and advanced manufacturing, providing a stable institutional environment for industry development and job creation.
As policy support continues to increase and consumer demand continues to escalate, the employment absorption capacity of the service industry will continue to be released. In the future, what new jobs can the service industry unlock and what new potential can it unleash?
There is still an obvious talent gap
In recent years, as my country's industrial structure continues to be optimized and residents' consumption continues to upgrade, more and more migrant workers have keenly grasped the huge opportunities contained in the service industry and actively transformed into service fields that are more dynamic and closer to people's livelihood needs.
Yan Changrui, who has been deeply involved in the pet medical industry for nearly 20 years, is one of them. He transformed from traditional animal husbandry to pet medical care, not only seizing the trend of industry development, but also truly feeling the booming talent demand and development potential of the service industry.
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Yan Changrui initially engaged in traditional animal husbandry. In 2006, he discovered that the domestic pet industry was still in a fragmented and extensive state of development, especially in the Liaoning region where he was located, which had yet to form a large-scale and professional pet medical institution.
Compared with the large-scale pet hospitals that have appeared in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, there is an obvious gap in the pet medical field in the Northeast region, which allows Yan Changrui to see huge development opportunities.
At the same time, he found that as people's living standards continue to improve, the scale of pet ownership continues to expand. People are paying more and more attention to pets and are willing to invest more in their pets' health. However, there were few professional pet doctors at that time, and the overall diagnosis and treatment level and professional service capabilities were low. This made him more determined to transform and develop and officially join the pet medical field.
Since around 2014, capital has gradually paid attention to the pet industry. The industry has ushered in a golden period of rapid development, and the pet medical field has also undergone significant changes.
Yan Changrui observed that pet medical care has gradually upgraded from a single model of "treating patients with illnesses" to a full life cycle health management. Services such as daily physical examinations, nutritional intervention, and early disease screening have been continuously enriched, and the service boundaries have continued to expand.
With the rapid development of the pet industry, a large number of jobs have also emerged. In addition to the core pet doctors, various related positions such as pet nutritionists, pet beauticians, pet e-commerce anchors, and industrial operators have also emerged, providing more employment options for ordinary people.
The "2025 China Pet Industry White Paper" shows that the number of dogs and cats in my country's cities and towns will exceed 124 million in 2024, and the corresponding consumer market will exceed 30 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.5%. The industry has strong development momentum.
Yan Changrui said that many people have already seen the potential of the pet industry and actively joined in. For example, many people choose to engage in relatively easy-to-get-to jobs such as pet grooming. "Pet beauticians with strong professional skills and rich experience can earn a very considerable income. The monthly salary can generally reach more than 10,000 yuan, and those with excellent performance can even reach 20,000 yuan. If you choose to open a store independently, although the income limit is higher, the operating risks are also relatively high. The final profit must be considered based on the actual situation of your own location selection, operation management, market environment, etc."
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However, he also admitted that there are still obvious talent gaps in the industry, especially in highly professional positions such as pet specialists, imaging doctors, and professional nursing staff. The gaps are particularly prominent, and the industry is eager for more professionals to enter the market to fill the gaps.
Zhaopin recruitment data shows that among the ten positions with the highest recruitment growth in the first three quarters of 2025, positions related to the pet economy ranked second, with a growth rate of 30.4%, second only to machine learning engineers. This also confirms the demand for talents in the pet industry.
Yan Changrui believes that my country's pet industry is still in a steady development stage and has huge room for future development. In addition to the existing mainstream positions, a large number of professional talents will be needed in various subdivisions including pet grooming, professional nursing, pet elderly care, and pet funerals.
For example, he said that in the future, pet medical care will gradually develop in a specialized direction, just like humans have specialized hospitals for medical treatment. Nowadays, people treat pets as family members and have increasingly higher professional requirements for pet diagnosis and treatment. This will also create more professional positions and create greater employment space.
New careers and new positions are constantly emerging
The pet economy is just one of the vivid microcosms of the expansion and quality improvement of my country's service industry and the promotion of employment growth. From a more macro perspective, my country's service industry continues to grow in scale and steadily improve in quality, opening up a broader space for development for the majority of employees.
In recent years, the scale of my country's service industry has continued to expand, and the pace of transformation and upgrading has continued to accelerate. Data show that from 2021 to 2024, the added value of my country's service industry will grow at an average annual rate of 5.9%, with an average contribution rate of 60.6% to economic growth, and its role in supporting economic growth continues to be consolidated.
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The rapid development of the service industry has continuously enhanced its ability to absorb employment.
The results of the fifth national economic census show that at the end of 2023, there were 428.984 million employees in legal entities in the country's secondary and tertiary industries, an increase of 45.748 million or 11.9% from the end of 2018. Among them, 264.689 million people were employed in the tertiary industry, accounting for 61.7% of all employees in the secondary and tertiary industries, an increase of 54.012 million people or 25.6%.
At the same time, the rise of the emerging service industry has also led to the continuous improvement of the quality and level of employment in the service industry.
Recently, Jinan University's Institute of Economics and Social Sciences and Zhaopin.com jointly released the "2025 China's New Employment Form Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report shows that the number of new employment positions in 2025 will increase by 15.1% year-on-year.
These new employment forms are mainly divided into two categories: location-based employment and cloud-based employment. Among them, location-based employment refers to service jobs that usually require the completion of tasks dispatched by the platform in a designated geographical location; cloud-based employment is a job that relies entirely on the Internet to provide services without geographical restrictions. Its service targets are jobs that are in demand across the country and even the world.
The "Report" shows that both types of positions show good income potential.
Among them, the new employment forms based on location are mainly middle- and high-income, accounting for 43.1% in the monthly salary range of 10,001 yuan to 15,000 yuan.
In the new employment form based on the cloud, the threshold for academic qualifications and experience is relatively higher, and the high income potential is also more prominent. For example, for online medical positions, over 30% of the positions have an average monthly salary of more than 15,000 yuan. Women, young people and highly educated groups are more likely to choose new cloud-based employment forms.
The continuous emergence of new occupations and new positions has enabled many workers to achieve career transformation, and Ms. Wang born in the 1990s is one of them.
She switched from a traditional clerical job to being a medical attendant. She told a reporter from Times Weekly that she previously worked in a traditional clerical job with a fixed income and limited room for development. After accidentally paying attention to the market demand for medical accompanying services, she made the decisive transition. Now she travels to major hospitals all year round, responsible for guiding patients, handling procedures, and accompanying and comforting patients. Although the work is intensive, she has gradually accumulated a reputation and customer base, and her monthly income now exceeds 10,000 yuan.
Ms. Wang’s experience is not unique. The "Report" shows that the number of recruitment positions for emerging professions such as medical attendants, pet care/pet companions, Internet doctors, game training partners, and online travel planners has increased significantly. Among them, the number of recruitment positions for game players and sparring partners will increase by 283.2% year-on-year in 2025, with an average recruitment monthly salary of 9,188 yuan, highlighting the profit potential of new skilled jobs.
The rapid development of these new business formats is also the direction encouraged and supported by national policies.
Facing the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the service industry will remain the key to promoting high-quality development, stably expanding employment, and continuing to increase residents' income.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" recommendations clearly propose "implementing actions to expand capacity and improve quality of the service industry", promote the extension of the producer service industry to specialization and the high end of the value chain in different fields, and promote the high-quality, diversified and convenient development of the consumer service industry.
At the same time, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, our country will also deeply implement the employment priority strategy, improve the employment promotion mechanism, and build an employment-friendly development model. Strengthen industry and employment coordination, actively cultivate new occupations and new positions, support enterprises to stabilize and expand jobs, promote the healthy development of flexible employment and new employment forms, and provide solid institutional guarantees for service industry practitioners to expand employment channels and improve income levels.
