Policy digest

Flexible employment to be encouraged

The State Council's General Office has issued a guideline to provide more favorable policies for various types of flexible employment.

The guideline, released on Friday, said local governments and State Council departments should encourage sole proprietorship and provide more convenient counseling and registration services.

They should encourage people to start low-risk small businesses that can produce a profit in a short time and are easy to transform, the guideline said.

It called on the authorities to create more part-time jobs in sectors including cleaning, sales, construction and decoration and strengthen support for part-time workers, the guideline said.

They should also speed up the development of the online economy in sectors such as sales, training, healthcare and entertainment, so that more people can work at home, it said.

The guideline called on the authorities to closely follow the development of society and the economy as well as new trends in the internet industry and update the classification of occupations to include new jobs.

The authorities need to guide the development of newly emerged occupations such as livestream sales and the delivery of online orders, form standards and design training courses for the occupations, it said.

The guideline said the authorities should provide training courses for people who want to work flexibly to help them start and operate their own businesses.

The authorities should also provide better human resources services for employers and job seekers who need flexible employment and guarantee the rights of employees, it said.