Restaurant industry helps drive China's labour market
China's labour market stabilised in Q2, largely driven by the food-service sector, according to the CIER Employment Index.

The labor market in China appears to finally be stabilizing and one of the leading industries driving that turnaround is the food-service sector. That news comes this week from a joint study by Chinese career platform, Zhaopin Limited, and the China Institute for Employment Research at Renmin University. Their CIER Employment Index Report for the second quarter shows both labor market growth and confidence have improved slightly over Q1.

The CIER Employment Index Report for the period rose to 1.93 in the second quarter, from 1.71 in the first quarter. Much of the current good news comes as the result of the top 10 industries driving the Chinese economy, of which the restaurant industry holds the No. 10 spot.



Other key findings of the study include:

• The best-performing sector — internet and e-commerce — was almost 47 times that of the worst-performing sector, which was energy, mineral, mining and smelting.

• Internet/e-commerce, funds/securities/futures/investment and traffic/transportation sectors all grew rapidly, creating healthy job demand.

• Recruitment demand in transportation sector grew 58 percent over last year, making it the fastest growing sector.

• Recruit demand was strongest in first-tier cities (40 percent), followed by 28 percent in emerging first-tier cities and 20 percent in second-tier cities.

• The driving force in the China labor market comes from smaller-sized companies and that was expected to continue as long as there is government support for innovation and entrepreneurship.

• The index is expected to continue to increase the rest of the year, due to seasonal factors as well as long-term demographic trends.

The top 10 best-performing sectors, with a CIER index higher than 2.1, had strong recruitment demand. That list was rounded out by the restaurant sector which saw a 2.13 percent increase in the CIER index. The study also found that most recruitment demand is coming from businesses in Eastern China, which accounted for 73 percent of job recruitment in the second quarter.