(Yicai Global) Jan. 21 -- China’s labor market contracted in the fourth quarter last year from the previous quarter as slowing economic growth in the second half dampened employment opportunities, according to a recent survey.

The China Institute for Employment Research Index stood at 1.99 in the three months ended Dec. 31, less than 2.15 in the third quarter, but higher than 1.95 percent a year earlier, according to a report released by the CIER yesterday.

The CIER Index is a “measure of the degree of tension of the matching between supply and demand in the labor market,” according to the CIER, which is part of People’s University in Beijing. “The larger the CIER Index, the more competitors there are for job vacancies and the more intensive the job market is. The changes in the CIER Index are affected by the number both of job seekers and job vacancies.”

More people were looking for work in the fourth quarter with an 18.9 percent jump in job applications, according to the report.

Professional services, logistics and internet-based businesses had the highest recruitment needs. The education and tutoring sector offered the least jobs due to China’s recent clampdown on extracurricular classes to ease the burden on students.

Increased downward pressure on the economy and the continued impact from the pandemic may affect the operations of some businesses and lead to fluctuations in their employment needs, Wang Pingping, head of the National Bureau of Statistics’ department of population and employment statistics, said in an article published in the Economic Daily on Jan. 18.

Demand for technical operators, cooks, filmmakers, sales personnel and housekeepers rose. But the need for blue-collar workers has been on the decline since the second half of last year and is likely to continue to fall in the first quarter.

Large enterprises were still the best employers, while the employment situation at micro and small firms was not promising, the report said.

Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Kim Taylor