热点思考 | 就业“新趋势”？（申万宏观·赵伟团队）

Core Viewpoint - The article discusses the new trends in employment and wage data for urban employees in 2024, highlighting shifts from high salary pursuits to a focus on reducing work intensity and improving work-life balance [1]. Group 1: Employment Trends - Employment is shifting from a focus on high salaries to a trend of "anti-involution," where workers prefer industries with shorter working hours and higher hourly wages. This change has been observed since 2021, contrasting with the pre-2019 trend of concentrating on high-paying sectors [2][9]. - The average annual wage growth for urban non-private sector employees has slowed to 2.8% in 2024, down from a peak in 2021, with significant declines in sectors like information technology and finance [2][9]. - Industries such as transportation and light manufacturing have shown resilience in wage growth due to direct revenue increases, with transportation revenue growth exceeding 8% in 2024 [2][21]. Group 2: Regional Wage Convergence and Employment Shifts - There is a convergence in wage growth between eastern and western regions of China, with the wage growth gap narrowing from 0.8 percentage points in 2019 to 0.5 percentage points in 2024 [4][53]. - Employment in the service sector is increasingly migrating to the central and western regions, while production-related jobs continue to flow into the eastern regions. This trend is supported by stronger wage growth in the service sector in these areas [4][75]. - The service consumption pattern is shifting from local to cross-province, further concentrating service sector employment in the central and western regions, driven by faster consumption growth in these areas [5][80]. Group 3: Wage Growth in Private and Flexible Employment - Wages in the private sector have generally lagged behind those in the non-private sector, but certain industries within the private sector, such as education and retail, have experienced higher wage growth [6][96]. - New forms of flexible employment, such as ride-hailing and delivery services, have seen significant wage increases, with average monthly salaries for these roles reaching 10,506 yuan, surpassing traditional employment salaries [7][114]. - The work intensity for new flexible employment roles is higher, with average weekly working hours for platform workers reaching 54.3 hours, indicating a trade-off between higher pay and increased workload [7][122].