An instructor (left) teaches backend operations during an e-commerce training session for women from villages and towns in Yuquan District, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on Jan. 13, 2026. Photo: IC PHOTO

The Recommendations for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development place “promoting high-quality full employment” in a prominent position in efforts to ensure and improve public well-being, with the goal of ensuring that the fruits of modernization are shared more broadly and equitably. In recent years, the rapid advancement of the digital economy as a strategic priority has become deeply embedded in China’s broader socioeconomic development agenda, reshaping the employment landscape and reconfiguring the logic of job creation.

Requirements for high-quality full employment

Achieving high-quality full employment in the digital economy ultimately requires an organic integration of both full employment and high-quality employment. Full employment entails unlocking the job-creation potential of the digital economy, expanding opportunities within new business models, and ensuring that workers with different skills enjoy equal access to digital employment. High-quality employment, in turn, calls for better skills matching and stronger protection for workers in new forms of employment, in order to promote a shift from basic job security toward simultaneous gains in quality and efficiency.

At the macro level, the task is not only to ensure an adequate supply of jobs and a fair, equitable employment environment, but also to better align employment structures with the evolution of digital industries and to match job placement more closely with demand for digital skills. At the micro level, workers should be able not only to secure employment supported by digital technologies and driven by data as a key production factor, but also to enjoy job security, reasonable income, reliable protection of rights and interests, and clear prospects for career advancement.

Addressing new challenges

While the rapid expansion of the digital economy has broadened pathways toward high-quality full employment, it has also made it more difficult for workers with limited digital capabilities or access to digital resources to share fully in the benefits of digital development.

First, barriers to entry are rising across sectors. Both traditional and emerging industries are accelerating their transformation through technologies such as AI, big data, and industrial robotics, placing higher demands on workers’ digital literacy and professional skills. As technological thresholds continue to climb, structural mismatches in employment are likely to intensify. Constrained by educational background, training resources, and the costs of reskilling, workers lacking relevant competencies often struggle to upgrade their skills quickly, risking gradual marginalization and finding themselves in a predicament where older jobs are disappearing while new ones remain out of reach.

Second, spatial mismatches in employment opportunities are becoming more pronounced. The development of the digital economy depends on supporting infrastructure and favorable ecosystems, leading digital industries to cluster in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as in other developed regions. By contrast, central and western regions and many county-level economies remain largely reliant on traditional industries and struggle to keep pace. These disparities in industrial distribution translate into an uneven distribution of employment opportunities: Highly educated and skilled workers continue to concentrate in developed areas, while those with lower levels of education and skills are often pushed to return to their hometowns or move to less developed regions.

Third, income disparities among workers are widening. In primary income distribution, the premium attached to digital skills amplifies income gaps between workers with different skills. Those proficient in cutting-edge technologies such as AI and big data command rising wages, while workers in new forms of employment—such as ride-hailing, food delivery, and livestreaming—face considerable income volatility.

Fully harnessing empowering potential of digital economy

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–30), advancing high-quality full employment will depend on addressing structural mismatches arising from the “digital skills gap,” precisely aligning employment opportunities and their spatial distribution, and developing long-term mechanisms to safeguard workers’ rights and interests in the digital era.

A first priority is to ease bottlenecks on both the supply and demand sides of the labor market in order to better address structural employment mismatches. This requires building forward-looking mechanisms to assess employment demand, using technologies such as AI and big data to dynamically track and forecast trends in key industries, thereby enabling proactive design of targeted retraining programs and career guidance for low-skilled workers.

In parallel, stronger regional coordination in digital development is needed to mitigate spatial mismatches in employment. This includes accelerating the upgrading of digital infrastructure in less developed regions, particularly in central and western China, accelerating the digital transformation of local traditional industries, and creating more jobs linked to digital technologies. Drawing on local resource endowments and industrial foundations, regions can also cultivate new digital business models—such as rural e-commerce and smart cultural tourism—suited to local conditions, thereby turning regional characteristics into employment advantages.

Finally, the income distribution system requires further optimization to effectively advance common prosperity for all. In primary distribution, platform algorithms should be more strictly regulated, with clear standards for minimum compensation, pricing rules, and commission caps in new forms of employment such as ride-hailing, food delivery, and livestreaming, while unfair practices such as algorithm-driven predatory suppression and excessive commissions must be prohibited. In redistribution, greater precision in tax adjustments and increased transfer payments targeting middle- and low-income groups, as well as flexibly employed workers, will be essential.

Pan Yue is a professor from the School of Economics at Xiamen University.