Employment plan

In August, the State Council, China's Cabinet, released a plan to promote employment during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

The State Council plan stresses the need to regulate flexible employment growth by getting rid of obstacles and protecting the rights of workers, including couriers, food delivery riders and ride-hailing drivers.

Bao said: "To effectively better protect the rights and interest of gig workers, the definitions 'gig worker' and 'flexible worker' need to be more clearly and specifically defined. A filing system is also needed to get these people registered under a new employment format, and a statistical and investigation mechanism should be set up."

He added that as this form of employment is still new and emerging in China, numerous details are still being studied and refined.

Bao said policies should be drawn up to support flexible employment. In particular, the safety net of Internet Plus public services should be enhanced to enable gig workers to enjoy public services through various channels.

The Internet Plus initiative was created by the central government to transform, modernize and equip traditional industries to join the modern economy.

Bao also called for concrete efforts to strengthen weak links in protecting these workers' basic rights, suggesting that a multi-pronged, coordinated regulatory mechanism be set up involving different stakeholders.

"Internet platforms, which are now major providers of gig jobs, should be included in the coordinated regulatory framework and take a certain degree of regulatory responsibility in protecting the rights and interests of gig workers," he said.

The younger generation in China appears to be embracing the opportunities offered by flexible employment.

When Feng, from Hefei, quit his job to become a photographer in 2012, his parents were worried and would have preferred him to take a position at a large company.

But for 24-year-old astronomy photographer Zhang Jingyi, who lives in Beijing, her parents fully supported her decision to become an independent photographer.

Zhang started work as an astronomy photographer in the Chinese capital immediately after finishing her master's in Australia.

She has never worked regular hours, and may never have the desire to do so. When she was 23, Zhang was a finalist for the Astronomy Photographers of the Year award by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London. Her photograph of a dragon-like shape in the sky over Iceland was adopted by the NASA website in the United States.

Bao said, "In principle, the robust growth of the gig economy and flexible employment in all forms is significant evidence of China's market-oriented reform and opening up. Young people today are being raised in a society that encourages entrepreneurship, giving them the courage and determination to do what they love, but we still need to build a sound institutional framework for them to grow healthily. As researchers, we have much work to do in this regard."

Two weeks ago, David Card from the University of California, Berkeley, was announced as one of the recipients of this year's Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his empirical contribution to labor economics.

"This will surely bolster our confidence in further research in this regard, particularly in China," Bao said.