Shenzhen will establish a lifelong training mechanism for workers and technicians by offering subsidies, establishing training bases and public service platforms that integrate training, assessment and job recommendations, said a work plan released by Shenzhen Human Resources and Social Security Bureau yesterday. The plan is a key move in building Shenzhen into a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics as an answer to the goal of improving people’s livelihood service supply system, the bureau said. As per the plan, by the end of 2025, skilled workers will take up 30% of the city’s total employment population, with highly skilled workers accounting for 40% of skilled workers. The city encourages learning and training institutions, employers and industry associations to expand training scope and provide various skill training courses by handing out subsidies. Priorities will be given to training that meet demands for development of strategic emerging industries, such as advanced manufacturing, digital economy, new business forms and new professions. Enterprises and industry associations are encouraged to set up high-level training bases for highly skilled talents engaged in key industries for the city’s high-quality development. Shenzhen will pilot establishing a “skill bank” to keep employees’ lifelong training profiles and set up a public service platform integrating vocational training, skill assessment and job recommendation. The platform will release job vacancies, training course links, skill training assessment, subsidy policies and employment recommendations. The city will work out a point accumulation and training accreditation system that breaks down the silos between vocational skill training and formal education. The city will also enhance cooperation and exchanges in vocational skill training with Hong Kong and Macao, encourage high-quality vocational schools from the two special administrative regions to set up training institutions in the city, and facilitate the mutual recognition of technical certificates in the three cities in the future. Shenzhen had been home to around 4 million skilled workers by the end of 2021, 35.9% of them highly skilled workers, according to the bureau. In 2021, a total of 15,000 people received training under the “Cantonese Cuisine Chef” program and 27,000 job opportunities were created. The “Guangdong Housekeeping” program covered all the 74 subdistricts in Shenzhen, and the employment rate of graduates from local vocational schools stood at 98%. By end of this August, the city had established 442 training bases for highly skilled workers. In the past three years, 4.5 million people have been provided with skill training.