Demand for home services to drive growth
Million million
Wan said his company needed more workers due to an increase in online orders. Good “aunties” are in extremely short supply, he said, which provided opportunities for them to earn very good salaries. One worker supplied by his company earned more than 30,000 yuan ($4,470) cleaning home appliances during last month’s seasonal peak in demand, almost triple the average per capita monthly income in Beijing last year.
“Traditional home services providers cannot manage a huge number of ‘aunties’, but internet-based technologies can, while improving service quality,” he said.
Wan’s company focuses on service quality and efficiency using internet-based approaches. The ultimate goal is to bring good services to consumers and win market share, he said.
A report released by the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security said more than 25 million people worked in the sector in 2016, accounting for about 3.3 percent of China’s workforce. The number rose to around 30 million last year.
As people’s livelihoods improve, an increasing number of families can afford home services, providing a new driver for China’s economic growth and employment, the academy’s report said. The number of workers in the sector is expected to hit 50 million in 2025, it said.
Over the years, home services have seen good development, with revenues increasing fast, said Tang Jianwei, a macroeconomic analyst at Bank of Communications’ Financial Research Center. But such services are still in short supply and demand for high-end services is surging, he said.
As of the end of last year, there were 249 million people in China aged 60 or older, accounting for 17.9 percent of the population, the National Bureau of Statistics said. There are 190 million families living in urban areas, with 15 percent of them needing home services, according to a survey by the China Home Service Association.
To meet demand brought about by the aging population and the second-child policy, the sector’s development can boost employment and expand domestic consumption, Tang said.