Skills on display, employment changes in motion at WorldSkills Shanghai

SHANGHAI, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A drone assembled from scores of parts navigated its way around obstacles. A mobile robot, after programming and fine-tuning by a competitor, identified and grasped objects. In a mock store, meanwhile, another competitor arranged merchandise, served customers, and switched between in-store sales and livestreaming.

Photo: IC

Over four days at the 48th WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai, scenes involving 64 skills told a broader story of economic transformation: new technologies and shifting market needs are creating fresh demand, job roles are being reshaped, and the skills economies need are evolving with them.

With all competition events completed, the global skills gathering is set to conclude with a closing ceremony on Sunday. This year's edition brought together 1,385 competitors from 68 countries and regions, while seven skills made their debuts, including unmanned aerial systems, software testing and retail.

Francis Hourant, president of WorldSkills International, said trades today are not exactly the same as they were in the 1960s, adding that the competition adjusts its portfolio to stay connected with "the reality of the industry."

NEW DEMAND TAKING SHAPE

The seven newcomers in Shanghai offer some of the clearest clues to where economic demand is moving.

In the unmanned aerial systems arena, competitors began with around 200 separate components. They had to assemble and calibrate a drone, write the code and prepare it for autonomous flight. Once airborne, this drone was expected to scan an unfamiliar environment, map obstacles and plan its own route -- with no human intervention during the flight.

Beyond the competition, similar technologies are already finding their way into everyday life. In Shenzhen in south China, drones deliver takeout to smart pickup lockers, while in southwest China's Chengdu, urban logistics drones carry goods along regular low-altitude routes, and over rice fields in northeast China, agricultural drones have become part of routine farm work.

Retail presented a different scene at the Shanghai event, but still reflected the same trend. Across different modules, competitors had to take on multiple roles: arranging merchandise, pitching products to customers, hosting livestreams and handling unexpected complaints.

"We are not training simply a top salesperson, but an all-round retail expert," said Chen Ying, head of the expert group at the Shanghai training base for this skill.

Such a combination of skills reflects a consumer market increasingly extending beyond goods toward services and experiences. In the first eight months of 2026, China's service retail sales rose 4.9 percent year on year, outpacing the 1-percent growth in goods retail sales, as demand expanded in areas including tourism, culture, sports and leisure.

"Where industries develop, new occupations emerge, and WorldSkills sets up skills accordingly," said Zhang Rui, deputy director of the WorldSkills Competition China (Tianjin) Research Center.

Among the seven new skills, software testing and digital interactive media design reflect the rise of the digital economy, while unmanned aerial systems and rail vehicle technology are among the skills tied to smart manufacturing and advanced equipment, Zhang explained.

AI REWRITING THE JOB

If changing demand helps explain why new occupations are emerging, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping what happens inside a job.

In the web technologies competition, contestants are no longer assessed simply on their ability to write code. They must analyze user needs, decide what functions a business scenario requires, complete front- and back-end development, and deliver a finished product.

Wu Yingxiang, a technical expert and coach for the Chinese team in WorldSkills web technologies, said AI is making code generation much faster, thus expanding what programmers are expected to do. "Every programmer may now become a project manager and a product manager," he said.

At another hall, contestants in the digital interactive media design competition moved from product planning to image processing, video production and interaction design during more than 20 hours of competition across four days.

Notably, even as AI begins to take over some basic work in the industry, the training remains highly demanding. Zhou Jiaxiang, a member of China's national training squad for this skill, described a six-hour video-production module in which contestants may have to adjust dozens or even hundreds of parameters and fine-tune transition effects frame by frame.

Data show that demand for AI-related skills has risen rapidly in China. Newly posted campus-recruitment positions in AI surged 47.3 percent year on year in the first five months of 2026, according to data from the talent research arm of Maimai, a Chinese networking and recruitment platform.

For Hourant, this shift points to a changing division of labor rather than an either/or choice between humans and AI. "It is not AI in the end," he said, adding that the future lies in combining human skills with AI.

BUILDING SKILLS FOR TOMORROW

The skills on display in Shanghai point to a challenge, namely whether the supply of skilled workers can keep pace with industries that are evolving faster than before.

Official data reveal that China has more than 220 million skilled workers, including over 72 million highly skilled workers. Yet gaps remain in fast-growing sectors. According to the Ministry of Education, China faced a shortage of more than 10 million highly skilled workers in areas related to the digital economy and intelligent manufacturing in 2025, making the expansion of skilled talent a top priority.

The country has been stepping up efforts to reduce this shortfall. The ministry added 27 programs to the country's vocational education catalog in July, covering fields like the digital economy, AI, the low-altitude economy and advanced equipment, with new offerings related to humanoid robots, to better match talent supply with emerging and future industries.

Over 5.5 million instances of subsidized vocational skills training were provided in the first half of 2026, with programs focusing on areas such as AI, advanced manufacturing, new-energy vehicles and the low-altitude economy, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security noted.

Shanghai Information Technology College, for example, has added four programs tailored to the city's AI industry and brought real production scenarios, technical standards and company projects into the teaching environment.

Elsewhere, schools are strengthening links with industry to keep training in step with swiftly changing industry needs. At Jiangxi Software Vocational and Technical University in east China, the campus is integrated with an industrial park, with nearly 100 companies involved in tailored training. Enterprise engineers teach classes, while real commercial projects are brought onto campus.

"Vocational education cannot be run behind closed doors," said Vice Principal of Shanghai Information Technology College Sun Pengtao. "Programs have to be updated along with industry."