Reports from China indicate that the country’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security had on April 1 issued a notice of the official recognition of thirteen (13) new occupations. The new occupations include Artificial intelligence engineering and technical personnel, Internet of Things engineering and technical personnel, Internet of Things installation and debugging staff, big data engineering and technical personnel, cloud computing engineering technician, Digital manager, building information model technician, e-sportsman, e-sports operator, drone driver, agricultural manager, industrial robot system operator, industrial robot system operator.

The new occupations are said to be the first batch of new occupations released since the promulgation of the 2015 National Occupational Classification. Notably, most of them are related to emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things, industrial robots, drones, etc. There are also long-established occupations that are just now getting official recognition by the government such as e-sportsmen and e-sports operators. Esports (short for electronic sports) is a form of competition using video games. Most commonly, e-sports takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams.

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China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Affairs pointed out that in recent years, e-sports have emerged as a huge industry with several international competitions annually. thus, the professionalization of e-sports operators and e-sportsmen was imperative. According to China’s Occupation Skill Testing Authority (OSTA), prospective professional gamers, also known as e-sports players, will participate in gaming competitions, work as training partners, provide data analysis for the industry, and design new games. Professional gaming operators’ (e-Sports operators) job description includes marketing new and existing game titles.

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