Nine Ministries Issue Policies to Upgrade RMB1 Trillion Domestic Services Industry
Nine departments including the Ministry of Commerce have jointly issued policy measures to promote high-quality development of China's domestic services industry, which has surpassed RMB1 trillion in scale with more than 30 million practitioners. The measures address skills training, national occupational standards, workers' rights protection, and human resources services, including social-insurance support for flexible workers and credit-based management of recruitment agencies.
Domestic services have become an important segment of the services economy, with industry scale surpassing RMB1 trillion and more than 30 million people employed in the sector. Nine departments, including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, recently issued Several Policy Measures on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Domestic Services Industry, setting out concrete steps covering skills training, standards formulation, workers' rights protection, and human resources services to underpin the sector's high-quality development.
At the same time, the policies promote the holding of multi-tiered vocational skills competitions for domestic services, leveraging such contests to drive skills training. The departments had jointly issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Professionalisation of the Domestic Services Industry in 2024, and will implement a demand-oriented vocational skills training programme for domestic services workers between 2025 and 2027.
On standards, the policies propose revising national occupational standards for domestic-services-related occupations and job categories, optimising vocational skill level certification methods, and supporting qualified localities in establishing lists of recognised overseas professional qualifications for the domestic services field. These measures aim to clarify skill requirements and career grading criteria for workers, providing reference pathways for professional development.
On rights protection, the policies support qualified localities in exploring lawful approaches to safeguarding domestic workers' rights through model contracts and industry association advocacy. Specific measures include formulating employment guidelines for domestic services companies, publishing standard service agreements that define the rights and obligations of all parties, and guiding companies towards compliant hiring practices. In addition, the policies call for domestic services companies to establish compensation arrangements aligned with workers' experience, skill levels, and service quality. Reflecting the characteristics of platform-based domestic services, the policies also guide domestic services platform companies to support flexible-employment workers in joining employee pension and medical insurance schemes through voluntary participation supplemented by platform subsidies.
On institutional optimisation, the policies require qualified human resources service agencies in the domestic services field to build unified centres for workforce supply, placement, management, and evaluation, and to strengthen the application of credit rating and classification results for commercial human resources service agencies within the sector. Through more specialised, scaled, and digitised operations of human resources service agencies, the aim is to expand the supply of quality domestic services.
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The event has a measured impact on 1 industry. The strongest current signal is positive for Local Consumer Platforms, with intensity 70/100 and 80% confidence over a medium term horizon.
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