NPC deputy Liang Qianjuan proposes the introduction of livestreaming recruitment to western China. (PHOTO: S&T Daily)

By ZHONG Jianli & MA Aiping

Livestreaming recruitment is becoming an important way for enterprises to source employees in China.

During the recently concluded Two Sessions, Liang Qianjuan, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) from northwest China's Gansu province, proposed the introduction of the "Kunshan mode" of livestreaming recruitment on a larger scale to western China.

As the first county-level city whose GDP exceeded 500 billion RMB, Kunshan in east China's Jiangsu province, has explored a new mode of recruitment via livestreaming on digital platforms.

Under this mode, government, enterprises and platforms collaborate with each other to bridge information gaps between job seekers and recruiters. Through digital platforms, traditional local labor markets are connected nationally, and are accessible to job seekers across the country.

Liang believed that it is necessary to make use of new channels such as short video and livestreaming, to solve the enterprises' difficulty in recruiting workers and the job seekers' difficulty in finding work. This will not only help encourage young people to return home to start businesses, but also promote the labor flow between east and west.

In 2022, the proportion of blue-collar workers who used short video or live broadcast to obtain jobs increased by 12.4 percent, according to the Report on Employment of Blue-collar Groups in China, published by a research center of the Capital University of Economics and Business.

Liang thus suggested that more local governments should cooperate with platform enterprises to promote the "Kunshan mode," and provide policy support to make labor flow and employment services in the central and western regions more efficient, through digital means.

Local governments, industry associations and platform enterprises should cooperate closely to increase the coverage of digital training in rural areas, and build classrooms and learning bases for young people returning to rural areas to master livestreaming skills when starting their businesses, added Liang.

Regarding developing rural e-commerce, Liang said it is vital to standardize and improve the e-commerce ecology and supply chain level in rural areas.

Local governments should further support and encourage specialized, wide-range, and industrialized development of rural e-commerce, so that high-quality agricultural products and proficient livestreaming anchors can get more attention on social media platforms.