China's gig economy booms as weak job market deepens pain

Bao Zhang used to test software in Beijing. Now he starts driving before dawn and often stays on the road until nearly midnight, earning about 6,000 yuan, or roughly $885, a month after rental and charging costs. Bao says that “those who used to take taxis now have to drive them themselves.”

The China New Employment Forms Research Center projected that flexible employment in China would reach 320 million people this year, up from 280 million in 2025, equal to about 44% of the workforce. Yang Zhan, a cultural anthropology expert at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said the change had spread to the middle class and university graduates, and called the proportion “extremely high.” The gig economy has become a pressure valve for workers displaced by the property crisis, automation, cost-cutting, tariffs, overcapacity and price wars.

Social insurance contributions are not mandatory in many flexible jobs, which means workers like Bao are often earning without building the same pension and welfare protections that come with formal employment. A government adviser warned that the rise of gig work heightens long-term risks to an underfunded welfare system. Central government transfers to cover social insurance gaps have tripled over the past decade (Gavekal Dragonomics).

A 2019 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report said the national pension fund could run out by 2035, and a 2024 update said delaying retirement could push depletion back eight to nine years. China’s population fell in 2022 for the first time in 61 years, people aged 65 and older made up 14.9% of the population, and there were 2.65 workers per enterprise retiree in 2019, a ratio projected to fall to 1.03 by 2050 (ThinkChina and Caixin). China began gradually raising its statutory retirement age in January 2025, the first adjustment in 70 years, as the country’s over-60 population reached about 310 million in 2024, roughly 22% of the total (MERICS).