More Private Jobs

China’s growing service sector has provided a growing number of jobs as a result of economic restructuring, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In 2016, the service sector employed 43.5 percent of China’s workforce, up from 36.1 percent in 2012. Private firms have become the main source of new jobs, the NBS said. Jobs created by state-owned enterprises, however, witnessed a drop of 5.4 percent year on year as of the third quarter of 2016. In job creation, small enterprises outperformed medium and large ones, NBS said. During the period from 2012 to 2016, every percentage point of GDP expansion created 1.72 million new non-farm jobs in China, it added. China created 13.1 million new jobs for urban residents last year. The registered unemployment rate in Chinese cities stood at 4 percent at the end of 2016. more than 100,000 overseas merchants, including high-end shopping malls such as Harrods and Printemps, both magnets for Chinese consumers. In the latest national holidays, Alipay saw the number of its overseas transactions quadruple. Europe secured the fastest growth with 18 times year on year. Payment users have grown rapidly from 20 million to more than 140 million in less than two years, said Ni Xingjun, Vice Head of Alipay. Overseas expansion in the next few years will target economies along the Belt and Road Initiative, he stated. “We see the most pressing needs in Southeast Asian nations, because of a bigger population base and lack of credit card culture, which spells more opportunities,” he said.