Service industry employment capacity continues to expand: practitioners account for over 48%, with average monthly salaries across multiple positions exceeding 10,000 yuan

This article is from Times Weekly, by Li Hang.

China’s job market is undergoing profound changes. The service industry has replaced manufacturing as the largest employer.

Data from the “China Statistical Yearbook 2025” shows that by the end of 2024, employment in the service sector reached 360 million people, accounting for 48.8% of the total employed population nationwide. This is an increase of 2.5 percentage points from 46.3% in 2018, maintaining the service industry as the leading sector in employment across the three industries.

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This shift is not accidental. It results from ongoing adjustments in China’s industrial structure, driven by upgraded consumer demand for services, and is also closely linked to the deep integration of digital economy and lifestyle services, which has created numerous new positions. These factors collectively are profoundly changing workers’ employment choices and career development paths.

Today, many people are proactively stepping out of traditional career models. Some transition from teachers to senior nannies, others from foreign company white-collar workers to pet groomers. The boundaries of professions are expanding, and employment options are becoming more diverse.

At the national policy level, efforts to develop the service industry and promote employment through service sector growth are continuously improving.

In recent years, policies such as implementing initiatives to improve the quality and expand the service sector, cultivating new growth points in service consumption, and promoting deep integration between modern services and advanced manufacturing have been rolled out, providing a stable institutional environment for industry development and employment absorption.

With ongoing policy support and rising consumer demand, the service industry’s capacity to absorb employment will continue to be unleashed. What new positions and potentials can the service industry unlock in the future?

Significant Talent Gaps Still Exist

In recent years, as China’s industrial structure continues to optimize and residents’ consumption upgrades, more and more workers have keenly recognized the huge opportunities within the service sector, actively transforming and entering more vibrant, people-centered fields.

Yan Changrui, who has been deeply involved in the pet medical industry for nearly 20 years, is one of them. He transitioned from traditional animal husbandry to pet healthcare, seizing the industry’s growth opportunities and experiencing firsthand the booming demand for talent and development potential in the service sector.

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Yan initially worked in traditional animal husbandry. In 2006, he noticed that the domestic pet industry was still in a scattered and extensive development stage, especially in Liaoning Province, where he is based, with no large-scale, specialized pet medical institutions.

Compared to the large-scale pet hospitals already established in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the pet medical field in Northeast China had a clear gap, revealing significant growth opportunities.

At the same time, he observed that as people’s living standards improved, pet ownership continued to expand, and people placed increasing importance on their pets, willing to invest more in their health. However, at that time, there were few professional pet veterinarians, and overall diagnostic and service levels were low. This strengthened his resolve to shift his career into pet healthcare.

Starting around 2014, capital began to pay attention to the pet industry, ushering in a golden period of rapid development, and the pet medical field experienced significant changes.

Yan noted that pet healthcare has gradually evolved from the previous “treating illness” model to comprehensive health management throughout the pet’s life cycle. Services such as routine check-ups, nutritional interventions, and early disease screening are continuously enriching, and the scope of services is expanding.

Along with the rapid growth of the pet industry, numerous employment opportunities have emerged. Beyond core pet veterinarians, roles such as pet nutritionists, pet groomers, pet e-commerce hosts, and industry operators have developed, providing more employment options for ordinary people.

The “2025 China Pet Industry White Paper” shows that in 2024, the number of dogs and cats in urban areas exceeded 124 million, with the corresponding consumer market surpassing 30 billion yuan, a 7.5% year-on-year increase, indicating strong industry growth momentum.

Yan said that many people now see the potential in the pet industry and are actively joining, such as choosing relatively easy-to-enter roles like pet grooming. “Professional, skilled pet groomers with rich experience can earn a very good income, with monthly salaries generally over 10,000 yuan, and top performers even reaching 20,000 yuan. Starting their own shops can yield even higher income, but also involves higher risks. Ultimately, the earnings depend on factors like location, management, and market conditions.”

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However, he also admits that the industry still faces a significant talent shortage, especially for specialized positions such as veterinary specialists, imaging doctors, and professional caregivers. The industry urgently needs more qualified professionals to fill these gaps.

According to Zhaopin data, among the top ten positions with the highest recruitment growth in the first three quarters of 2025, roles related to the pet economy ranked second with a growth rate of 30.4%, just behind machine learning engineers, confirming the high demand for talent in the pet industry.

Yan believes that China’s pet industry is still in a steady development stage with enormous future potential. Besides existing mainstream roles, future demand will include pet grooming, specialized care, pet retirement, and pet funeral services, all requiring large numbers of professional talents.

He gave an example that pet medical services will gradually become more specialized, similar to human hospitals with specialized departments. As people increasingly treat pets as family members and demand higher professionalism in pet healthcare, more specialized positions will emerge, creating greater employment opportunities.

New Careers and Positions Keep Emerging

The pet economy is just one vivid example of how China’s service sector expansion and quality improvement are driving employment growth. From a broader perspective, the continuous growth and steady enhancement of the service industry are opening up wider development space for job seekers.

In recent years, China’s service sector has continued to expand, with ongoing transformation and upgrading. Data shows that from 2021 to 2024, the added value of the service industry increased at an average annual rate of 5.9%, contributing 60.6% to economic growth on average, reinforcing its role in supporting the economy.

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The rapid development of the service industry has also strengthened its capacity to create jobs.

The results of the fifth national economic census show that by the end of 2023, employment in legal entities in the secondary and tertiary industries reached 429.984 million, an increase of 45.748 million (11.9%) since the end of 2018. Among them, the tertiary industry employed 264.689 million people, accounting for 61.7% of all workers in the secondary and tertiary industries, with an increase of 54.012 million (25.6%).

Meanwhile, the rise of emerging service industries has also driven continuous improvement in employment quality and levels.

Recently, Jinan University’s Institute of Economics and Society and Zhaopin jointly released the “2025 China New Employment Forms Report.” The report shows that the number of new employment positions in 2025 increased by 15.1% year-on-year.

These new employment forms mainly fall into two categories: location-based employment and cloud-based employment. Location-based jobs typically require working at specific geographic sites to complete platform-assigned tasks; cloud-based jobs rely entirely on the internet, with no geographic restrictions, serving demanders nationwide or even globally.

The report indicates both types of positions show promising income potential.

Location-based new employment mainly offers mid-to-high income, with 43.1% earning between 10,001 and 15,000 yuan per month.

Cloud-based new employment has higher educational and experience requirements, with greater income potential. For example, online medical positions see over 30% of roles with an average monthly salary above 15,000 yuan. Women, young people, and highly educated groups tend to prefer cloud-based employment.

The continuous emergence of new careers and positions has enabled many workers to transform their careers. Ms. Wang, born in the 90s, is one example.

She told Times Weekly that she transitioned from a traditional clerical job to a companion diagnosis specialist. She previously worked in a standard office role with fixed income and limited growth space. After noticing the market demand for companion diagnosis services, she decisively changed careers. Now she frequently visits hospitals, guiding patients, handling procedures, and comforting patients. Although the work is demanding, she has gradually built a good reputation and client base, earning over 10,000 yuan per month.

Ms. Wang’s experience is not unique. The report shows that roles such as companion diagnosis specialists, pet caregivers, online doctors, game boosters, and online travel planners have seen significant growth in recruitment. Among them, game boosting and coaching positions saw a 283.2% year-on-year increase in 2025, with an average monthly salary of 9,188 yuan, highlighting the income potential of skill-based new jobs.

The rapid development of these new industries aligns with national policies’ encouragement and support.

Looking ahead to the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the service industry will remain a key driver of high-quality development, stable employment expansion, and increased residents’ income.

The plan explicitly proposes to “implement actions to expand and improve the quality of the service sector,” promoting the professionalization and high-end value chain extension of productive services, and fostering high-quality, diverse, and convenient living services.

Meanwhile, during the “14th Five-Year Plan,” China will deepen the implementation of employment priority strategies, improve employment promotion mechanisms, and build an employment-friendly development model. Strengthening industry-employment coordination, actively cultivating new careers and positions, supporting stable and expanded employment in enterprises, and promoting flexible and new employment forms will provide a solid institutional guarantee for expanding employment channels and increasing income for service sector workers.