Abstract: Driven by economic restructuring, shifts in corporate organizational structures, and the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, structural changes are taking place within China's broadly defined flexible employment population of approximately 320 million. A growing number of young people, particularly those with higher education, are entering the labor market through flexible employment arrangements such as digital platforms and project-based work. The shift toward youth gig work is becoming an important window for observing changes in the organization of the labor market. Youth gig work is driving the labor market's transition from being centered on "positions" to being centered on "tasks, projects, and capabilities". What truly deserves attention is not merely whether young people can secure immediate income, but whether gig employment can foster continuous human capital accumulation, career development pathways, and long-term income expectations. This shift may also extend further to affect marriage, childbirth, housing, and population mobility. For cities, individuals previously obtained work, security, and urban living conditions primarily through work units. In the future, they may increasingly obtain tasks through platforms, connect their lives through communities, and access public services through cities. Urban development in China also needs to shift from simply providing jobs and space to further enhancing "employment carrying capacity", promoting the portability of benefits with individuals, and reorganizing office, residential, community, and public service spaces. The rise of youth gig work is becoming a critical variable for observing changes in the logic of future urban development.

In August 2026, the surveyed unemployment rate for China's urban non-student youth aged 16 to 24 was 18.9%, and it was 7.5% for those aged 25 to 29. Meanwhile, the number of college graduates in 2026 is projected to reach 12.7 million. Under employment pressure and economic restructuring, a growing number of young people are entering the labor market through employment methods that differ from traditional employment. Some enter the online platform economy such as food delivery and ride-hailing; others undertake projects in design, content creation, and technical development, and still others seek sources of income through part-time work, freelancing, and micro-entrepreneurship.

The changes behind this may be more worthy of attention than "youth employment difficulty" itself. In the past, a young person moving to a city often meant finding a relatively stable job, entering a company or work unit, and thereby obtaining income, social security, housing, and other urban living conditions. Employment positions were not only channels for earning income, but also important entry points for individuals to establish career identities, accumulate human capital, form family expectations, and integrate into cities.

Today, however, this entry point is changing. With the development of the platform economy, project-based labor, flexible employment, and artificial intelligence technology, a growing number of jobs are being broken down into tasks, projects, and specific capabilities, and the relationship between workers and enterprises has become more flexible. A person does not necessarily need to enter a fixed work unit first to obtain work. Instead, people can first obtain tasks through platforms, and then accumulate income, experience, and capabilities through successive projects.

This means China is facing not merely a quantitative change such as an "increase in the number of flexible workers", but potentially a structural adjustment in how the labor market is organized. The broadly defined flexible employment group of approximately 320 million is internally differentiated, with an increasing number of young people entering this system. The question also shifts further from "whether there is work" to "whether such work can foster career development", "whether it can accumulate human capital", and "whether it can form stable long-term expectations".

As these changes continue to occur, they will not remain confined within the labor market. An individual's employment method affects income and consumption, influences housing choices, marriage and childbirth decisions, and population mobility. At the same time, this will also determine how people utilize communities, public services, and urban space. The urban operating logic previously formed around fixed work units must therefore confront new forms of employment. Consequently, understanding youth gig work cannot be limited to considering it merely as a transitional phenomenon in youth employment. It is more like a window allowing us to foresee potential changes in the future labor market, demographic behavior, and urban development. This article attempts to discuss this emerging variable along the chain of "youth gig work - labor market restructuring - changes in human capital - changes in demographic behavior - adjustment of urban development logic".

1. The Rise of Youth Gig Work: Understanding the 320 Million Flexible Employment Population

(I) From "Flexible Employment" to the "Gig Population"

"Flexible employment" is not a single employment group, but rather a policy concept with a very broad statistical scope.

According to the 2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report, released in June 2026 by the China New Employment Forms Research Center, a think tank established by Capital University of Economics and Business and the China Association for Employment Promotion, the country's broadly defined flexible employment workforce stood at approximately 280 million in 2025 and is projected to increase to 320 million in 2026, accounting for over 44% of the country's total employment population, projected at 725 million. Meanwhile, official estimates announced by the human resources and social security authorities in December 2025 put the figure at over 200 million.

The differences between the two sets of data mainly stem from differing statistical scopes. Research institutions adopt a broad scope, incorporating individual business owners, traditional gig workers, and platform employment personnel into their statistics, whereas official statistical scopes are relatively more rigorous.

According to the Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Supporting Multi-Channel Flexible Employment, flexible employment mainly includes three categories, namely individual business owners, part-time and gig workers, and new employment form workers relying on internet platforms. In terms of scale, broadly defined flexible employment includes both more than 80 million individual industrial and commercial households, as well as traditional domestic service gig workers and the continuously expanding platform employment group.

As they are formed by different types of workers, these 320 million people actually constitute a group with vast internal disparities. Among them, individual industrial and commercial households make up a larger component and represent the category most easily confused with gig labor. From an economic standpoint, they possess certain means of production and bear business risks, rather than merely labor risks.

Therefore, if an analysis is conducted from the perspective of labor relations rather than business entities, after excluding individual industrial and commercial households, the scale of gig workers truly requiring discussion is approximately 240 million. This division is an analytical framework proposed based on the perspective of labor relations and does not constitute an official statistical scope.

(II) From "Traditional Gig Work" to "Digital Gig Work"

These 240 million gig workers can be further divided into two categories based on their employment organization methods.

The first category comprises traditional gig workers, numbering about 130 million, primarily including domestic helpers, cleaners, maternity matrons, and temporary construction workers. They mainly obtain work opportunities through traditional channels such as acquaintance networks and labor markets. These are gig workers in the traditional sense.

The other category consists of digital platform gig workers organized through internet platforms and algorithms. According to the flexible employment structural data published in the 2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report and analyzed in conjunction with labor relations and employment organization methods, after excluding approximately 80 million individual industrial and commercial households and roughly 130 million traditional gig workers, the scale of these digital platform gig workers is approximately 100 million. They mainly include food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, self-media creators, online outsourcing personnel, and AI data annotation personnel.

These figures are not an independent official statistical result, but rather an analytical estimate made on the basis of existing data.

(III) "New Faces" in the Digital Gig Pool

In the past, doing odd jobs was primarily a way for low-income workers to secure employment and income. Today, however, under the combined effects of economic adjustments, changes in corporate organizational structures, and the development of AI, three new sources of entrants have emerged within the digital gig pool.

The first type consists of traditional blue-collar workers who have "transitioned onto platforms". Due to the downturn in the real estate sector, the suspension of construction sites, or factory layoffs, they have been forced to turn to employment on platforms such as food delivery, courier-logistics, and ride-hailing. Although they have entered digital platforms, they remain traditional manual laborers at their core, and their primary demands continue to be survival and income.

The second type comprises white-collar workers who have switched their roles to join platforms. Affected by industry adjustments and layoffs at major tech companies, they carry household expenditure pressures such as mortgages and car loans. To maintain cash flow, many workers who originally engaged in white-collar jobs have begun entering platforms for ride-hailing and online outsourcing.

The third type, and also the one most worthy of attention, is young graduates who are joining the platforms for the first time. An increasing number of young people with higher education are starting to enter employment markets such as food delivery, ride-hailing, self-media, and AI data annotation. These are precisely the markets previously occupied mainly by low-skilled workers. This enables workers of varying skill levels to compete directly on the same platforms, while further intensifying employment competition pressures for traditional gig workers.

This change is not an isolated case. In fact, it has already been corroborated by multiple surveys.

Information released by the country's Center for Student Services and Development (CSSD) shows that the proportion of flexible employment for 2020 college graduates was 16.9%, and for 2021 graduates, it was 16.25%. Meanwhile, data from MyCOS Research Institute indicates that the flexible employment proportion for 2024 undergraduate graduates was 5.8%, and for vocational college graduates, 9.6%. This indicates that the entry of youth into gig employment has begun to evolve from a short-term transition into an employment trend characterized by structural features.

The "youth gig work" referred to is not young people occasionally doing odd jobs, but rather a process in which an increasing number of young people adopt gig employment as their primary way of entering the labor market and may remain in it for the long term, thereby continuously driving changes in the youth employment structure.

This situation is not unique to China. In recent years, the academia in Europe and the United States have increasingly used "gigification" to describe the ongoing evolution of labor relations toward platformization and task-based structures. Japan, on the other hand, has long focused on the impacts of "non-regular employment" on youth career development, marriage, childbirth, and social security. Although the concepts used by different countries are not entirely identical, they all reflect the same trend, i.e., an increasing number of youth find it increasingly difficult to directly enter stable, long-term career development tracks.

When a growing number of higher-education-educated youths enter the labor market through platforms rather than traditional positions, and their duration of stay continues to lengthen, it is no longer a simple employment transition, but rather a sustainable change in employment structure. In the past, the gig economy primarily absorbed surplus labor. Today, it is increasingly absorbing human capital with higher education and gradually evolving into an important entry point for youth entering the labor market. Therefore, youth gig work now is not merely an employment phenomenon, but has become an important window for observing changes in the future labor market, human capital allocation, urban development, and even social structure.

2. Why Are More Young People Entering the Gig System?

(I) Why Are Young People Entering the Gig System?

There is a view in Chinese society that young people entering the gig economy is a matter of active choice. This view is not entirely without basis. Surveys by scholars such as Li Zuojun and others show that over 87% of young people believe that flexible employment can provide a freer way of working and make it easier to reflect personal value. In recent years, an increasing number of young people have begun to value work autonomy, quality of life, and physical and mental health, hoping to break away from traditional workplace internal friction. However, viewed from a macroeconomic perspective, explaining youth gig work solely through "active choice" is clearly insufficient.

First, the supply of youth labor continues to increase, and traditional career entry points are under pressure.

According to data released by China's Ministry of Education, the scale of national regular higher education graduates reached 12.22 million in 2025, an increase of 430,000 from the previous year. The scale of national regular higher education graduates for 2026 is projected to further reach 12.7 million.

Meanwhile, latest data from the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that in August 2026, the surveyed urban unemployment rate for the 16–24 age group excluding students nationwide was 18.9%, for the 25–29 age group it was 7.5%, and for the 30–59 age group it was 3.9%. Among them, the 16–24 age group increased by 1 percentage point compared to July, the 25–29 age group increased by 0.3 percentage points, while the 30–59 age group remained unchanged.

Time-wise, the surveyed unemployment rate for the 16–24 age group excluding students was 18.8% in August 2024, 18.9% in August 2025, and remains 18.9% in August 2026. This means that the employment pressure faced by youth entering the labor market has not disappeared with the stabilization of the overall employment situation.

The unemployment rate for this age group is higher than the national urban surveyed unemployment rate over the same period, which also indicates that youth still face substantial employment pressure during the transition from school to the labor market. A large number of youth continue to enter the labor market, while youth employment faces significant structural pressure. For young people entering the labor market, the key issue is not simply whether work is available, but also how they gain access to and enter the labor market. In this context, gig work, platforms, and flexible employment have gradually become important channels for some youth to enter the labor market.

Second, corporate employment practices are shifting from "position-based hiring" to "task allocation".

In the past, enterprises hired for a specific position, which meant they needed to bear long-term labor relations, training costs, and position-matching costs. However, with the development of the platform economy, human resource outsourcing, and digital technology, some enterprises have begun to break down complete jobs into more specific, standardized, and measurable tasks, completing labor allocation through outsourcing, dispatching, platforms, and other methods.

Based on field research in the manufacturing sector and related data calculations, Professor Zhang Dandan's research team at the National School of Development at Peking University found that in manufacturing-concentrated areas such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, dispatched workers can account for an average of up to one-third of an enterprise's employment scale, and up to two-thirds during peak production seasons, and their calculated proportion of dispatched workers in manufacturing is approximately 33.4%.

The China Flexible Employment Development Report (2022) similarly shows that flexible employment is expanding from traditional basic positions to technical and professional positions. Report data indicates that approximately 45% of enterprises mainly use flexible employment in low-skilled, basic positions. About 20% of enterprises primarily use semi-skilled and semi-professional positions such as sales, street promotion, debt collection, customer service, content moderation, and data annotation as flexible employment positions. Additionally, another 29% of enterprises mainly use flexible employment in professional positions such as IT, other professional technologies, administration, human resources, finance, and legal affairs.

This means that enterprises' demand for labor is shifting from simply purchasing a long-term labor relationship corresponding to a "position" to purchasing specific labor capabilities and task-completion capacities according to business needs.

Third, artificial intelligence has further reinforced the trend of task decomposition.

Rather than focusing solely on whether AI "replaces jobs", it is more important to examine how AI is transforming the nature and organization of work itself. An increasing number of tasks that were previously performed within conventional occupational roles can now be decomposed into standardized, process-driven, and measurable components, which can then be coordinated and distributed through digital platforms. As a result, youth gig work is no longer confined to traditional platform-based activities such as food delivery and ride-hailing. It is increasingly extending into knowledge-intensive and digitally mediated forms of work, including content moderation, data annotation, online customer service, AI training, and digital content production.

This transformation is already evident among highly educated youth.

The 2024 China New Flexible Employment Report shows that among cloud-based new flexible employment job types such as media, internet e-commerce, knowledge services, and live streaming, the proportion of job seekers under the age of 30 generally exceeds 70%. Among cloud-based new flexible employment job seekers, those with a bachelor's degree or above account for 56.2%, which is higher than the 38.1% found in location-based new flexible employment positions. This indicates that digital gig work is breaking through the traditional boundaries of low-skilled employment and beginning to become an important channel for young, highly educated workers to enter the labor market. It also signifies that the gig economy absorbs not merely traditional surplus labor, but an increasing number of young workers with human capital advantages. All in all, the way human capital enters China's labor market is undergoing changes.

Yet, there is another issue that deserves attention. Research by Zhang Dandan's team at the National School of Development at Peking University on manufacturing gig work points out that a prominent change currently faced by some industries is the structural adjustment between formal employment demand and flexible employment demand. With the AI-oriented, platformized changes in production organization methods of manufacturing, some jobs that were originally undertaken by stable positions have begun to be allocated in more flexible ways.

This change also needs to be seen in the context of youth employment. In recent years, one factor worth noting in explaining why the youth unemployment rate has not simply manifested itself as unemployment on a larger scale is that flexible forms of employment, such as the gig economy and platform-based work, have provided a buffer for employment. According to the employment statistics criteria used by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and China's labor force surveys, workers who engage in at least one hour of work during the survey week in exchange for remuneration or business income may be counted as employed.

Therefore, a portion of youth who have not entered the traditional formal career track but have already obtained income through platforms, part-time work, or freelancing belong to the employed population under this statistical standard. This means that youth employment pressure does not entirely manifest as unemployment. Instead, it may also manifest as insufficient job stability, limited career development space, and inadequate human capital accumulation.

Consequently, youth gig work should not be understood simply as a shift in young people's employment preferences, but rather as an emerging labor market phenomenon shaped by the interplay of labor supply, organizational practices, and technological transformation. As increasing numbers of young people in China enter the gig economy, the central question extends beyond simply whether employment opportunities are available to a more fundamental concern, that whether gig work can provide a sustainable pathway for long-term career development.

(II) What does the gigification of youth mean?

More notably, when young people enter the gig system, they are no longer facing careers in the traditional sense, but rather a new labor relationship and a new way of organizing work. British economist Guy Standing proposed the concept of "precariat" in his 2011 book, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, to describe a group of people who are in a prolonged state of employment and income insecurity, lacking a stable occupational identity and social security. Its main characteristic is not merely a lower income level, but more importantly, uncertainty.

Platform workers today may seem to have more time freedom, but at the same time, they are increasingly influenced by algorithms, online traffic, and platform rules. Income differentiation within the platform economy is also very pronounced. The Research Report on the China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report (2024) shows that the income gap between the top and bottom of the live-streaming industry is vast. The top 0.25% of live streamers capture over 90% of the industry's earnings, while 93% of streamers earn less than RMB 3,000 per month, and 31% earn even less than RMB 1,000. The report also shows that the average daily working hours of some top streamers reach 12 to 18 hours.

The ride-hailing industry similarly exhibits clear supply competition. In 2024, the number of licensed ride-hailing drivers nationwide reached 7.483 million, an increase of 159% compared to 2020. Over the same period, average monthly order volume grew by approximately 38.3%. The growth in driver supply clearly outpaced the growth in orders, thereby intensifying industry competition.

Even more noteworthy is that after entering the gig system, young people are not just competing with their peers, but are competing together with a broader supply of social labor. A 2025 survey of ride-hailing drivers by the China New Employment Forms Research Center shows that 77% of ride-hailing drivers transitioned into the industry after experiencing unemployment, and over half are the sole or primary source of income for their families. Among the survey sample, approximately 90% of drivers had previously worked in fields such as manufacturing, construction, or self-employment.

An employment scenario that was uncommon in the past is emerging. Newly graduated college students, young white-collar workers who have experienced adjustments in the internet industry, middle-aged workers who have lost their jobs and switched positions, and traditional blue-collar workers are beginning to enter the same platform-based labor market to varying degrees.

In the past, the gig market mostly absorbed low-skilled workers. Today, highly educated youth, middle-aged career changers, and traditional blue-collar workers are entering different types of task markets together. This signifies that the employment structure that was originally distributed according to age, skill, and industry is beginning to undergo a restructuring. The gigification of youth not only means increased employment pressure for young people, but also that the competitive structure of the entire gig market is undergoing changes.

(III) What truly deserves attention is not social security, but the future

The 2025 China Blue-Collar Employment Research Report uses "secured basic survival, limited development" to summarize the structural characteristics of the current flexible employment group. The report shows that basic medical insurance participation among flexible workers has reached 91.5%, and occupational injury insurance coverage has reached 86.2%. However, confidence in retirement planning is only 42.3%, and 54.8% believe they have career development opportunities. This indicates that while basic social security for flexible employment continues to improve, workers' expectations for long-term career development remain insufficient. Therefore, the new problem facing flexible employment in China is no longer whether there is "social security", but whether there is a "future".

In previous discourses on flexible employment in China, more attention was paid to whether workers had basic labor protection. Now, the focus should be on whether workers can form continuous human capital accumulation through their work. Young people can rely on platforms to obtain income, but they may not necessarily be able to accumulate career capital simultaneously.

They might earn income in the present time, but they may lack future career credit. A decline in income stability may affect young people's housing, consumption, and asset accumulation capabilities. A decline in career development expectations may also further affect long-term decisions such as marriage and childbirth. If they remain stuck in low-accumulation task-based work for a long time, their skill-enhancement and career-advancement capabilities may also be affected. These changes may eventually transmit further from the employment sphere to consumption, demographics, and long-term economic growth.

III. From the job market to the task market: How the gigification of youth is changing social structure

(i) Moving from the "job market" to the "task market"

In the past, the primary way people entered the labor market was by searching for a job position.

Then, enterprises provided jobs, workers applied for jobs, and labor contracts connected the two parties. Once a person entered an enterprise, their salary, occupational identity, promotion path, social insurance, and a considerable portion of their social relationships all revolved around that job.

However, this logic is changing. A growing number of enterprises have begun to dismantle work originally undertaken by a single job into several specific tasks, and then hand over those tasks to different people to complete through outsourcing, dispatching, project-based systems, platform employment, crowdsourcing, and other methods. Workers do not necessarily need to enter an enterprise to obtain employment opportunities. As long as they can complete a certain task, they can potentially enter the market directly to earn income.

This means that the intermediary link connecting enterprises and workers is changing. In the past, it was "enterprises provide jobs, and workers obtain job positions". In the future, it may increasingly manifest as "enterprises propose tasks, and workers undertake tasks".

This is also why understanding today's gig economy cannot stop solely at traditional platform workers such as food delivery couriers and ride-hailing drivers. What truly deserves attention is that tasks themselves are becoming a new unit of labor organization, and artificial intelligence is accelerating this change.

A 2023 study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) pointed out that the main impact of generative AI on employment is not necessarily the direct replacement of entire occupations, but rather more likely the automation of partial tasks within occupations and the alteration of what workers do within a job. In 2025, the ILO further extended its analysis to the task level, evaluating the potential impact of generative AI based on nearly 30,000 tasks. It concluded that roughly a quarter of global employment positions are exposed to varying degrees of generative AI. Yet, because the vast majority of occupations still include tasks requiring human participation, job transformation is more likely to occur than the direct disappearance of entire occupations.

This means that a person's occupational boundaries may become increasingly unclear. An individual can undertake multiple projects simultaneously, handle different tasks across various platforms, and also use AI to complete parts of work that previously required collaboration among multiple people. Enterprises can also re-split work that was previously fixed long-term in positions based on business changes. A job in the past often corresponded to a relatively stable occupational identity. In the future, a person's occupational identity may increasingly be defined by "what tasks a person is capable of completing".

This type of change is not entirely without foundation. By the end of 2024, China had a total of 74,000 human resources service institutions of various types, employing 1.093 million people. Since the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the human resources service industry has provided services to an average of 300 million person-times of workers per year, providing employment, job-selection, and mobility services to workers. This figure itself is not equivalent to the "scale of the task market", but it does reflect an important change, i.e., the market-oriented intermediary system connecting workers and job opportunities is developing rapidly. In the past, workers mainly relied on enterprise recruitment to enter jobs. Now, an increasing number of employment, job-selection, and career mobility processes are completed through platforms, professional institutions, and market-oriented services.

From this perspective, the gigification of youth is actually the manifestation of a larger change. The labor market is gradually shifting from being centered around "jobs" to being centered around "tasks, projects, and capabilities". This does not mean that jobs will disappear. On the contrary, for a considerable period, stable jobs will remain the mainstay of the labor market. That being noted, outside of traditional jobs, the proportion of tasks, projects, short-term cooperation, and flexible employment may continue to rise.

This will bring about a very important change. In the past, workers primarily entered enterprises through jobs. In the future, an increasing number of workers may enter the market through tasks. Once "jobs" are no longer the only important connection point between workers and enterprises, many of the things that were previously attached to jobs will also need to find new forms. This is where the gigification of youth truly warrants attention.

(ii) From "occupation" to "task combination"

Another important function of the job market is to help an individual form a career. After entering an enterprise, a young person typically goes through a relatively clear process, from a newcomer to a skilled employee, and then to a professional, manager, or other occupational role. Wage growth, skill accumulation, and occupational identity generally form gradually along with years of experience. The skills accumulated in a person's first job become the foundation for the next job. The experience formed in the first enterprise improves the ability to enter the next enterprise as well. Meanwhile, occupational qualifications, industry experience, networks, and organizational experience continuously compound over time. Therefore, the truly important aspect of stable employment is not merely having a paycheck each month, but rather that it helps a young person accumulate the human capital required for future income. Gigification, however, may alter this mode of accumulation.

If a young person frequently switches between multiple platforms over the long term, for instance, doing delivery work today, live-streaming tomorrow, and taking on a short-term project the day after, and each job generates income, but clear skill progression relationships do not necessarily form between different jobs. Under such a scenario, what they acquire may primarily be immediate income rather than continuously growing career capital.

Of course, this does not mean that gig work cannot accumulate human capital. Some professional freelancers, programmers, designers, consultants, content creators, and others can also continuously accumulate experience through projects and build their own professional brands. For these individuals, projects themselves are a component of career development

What truly requires vigilance is another scenario, in which work becomes increasingly flexible, but capabilities do not accumulate synchronously. This also means that income becomes increasingly immediate, but career paths become increasingly ambiguous. This is also why the gigification of youth cannot be simply understood as "young people becoming freer".

For some young people, flexible employment indeed provides an opportunity to enter the labor market and offers more flexible working methods than traditional jobs. However, if an individual remains stuck in tasks characterized by low entry barriers, low accumulation, and low bargaining power over the long term, then flexibility may ultimately turn into stagnation in career development. Income refers to how much money a person can earn today, while earning capacity reflects how much they may be able to earn in the future. The two are not the same.

What truly needs to be observed in the future is not just how many young people engage in gig work, but whether these young people can complete skill upgrades through gig work, whether they can move from low-skill tasks to high-skill tasks, and whether they can shift from simply selling time to selling professional capabilities. If these pathways can be established, gigification can become a new entry point for career development. If these pathways cannot be established, gigification may form a new type of "low-accumulation employment". What a society truly needs to focus on is not only whether there is work, but also whether work can form stable occupational identities, income expectations, and future opportunities.

This is likely the first layer of change transmitted to the social structure by the gigification of youth.

(iii) Transmission from employment issues to demographic issues

The second layer of impact from the gigification of youth may occur in demographic behavior. For a young person just entering society, work signifies not only income but also an assessment of the future. When stable income can be earned, when assets can be accumulated, and when the costs of housing, marriage, and family can be borne, all of these will influence an individual's long-term choices.

Under traditional employment models, although career development may not always be smooth, at least a relatively clear expectation exists. As years of work increase, skills and experience grow, income may gradually rise, and social security accumulates alongside the employment relationship. If young people are confronted with an increasing number of short-term tasks, unstable incomes, and blurred career paths, this long-term expectation may be affected.

Japan is a case worth observing. Japan cannot be simply regarded as the "future sample" of China's youth gigification, yet it can serve as an example of what social impacts may arise when non-standard employment, occupational instability, and demographic structural changes occur simultaneously.

According to data from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), non-regular employed workers in Japan numbered approximately 21.26 million in 2024, accounting for 36.8% of employed workers. However, internal differences within Japan's non-regular employment are vast, encompassing both workers who voluntarily choose flexible work and those who hope to secure regular jobs. Therefore, "non-regular employment" cannot be directly equated with "employment instability". In 2024, Japan's "involuntary non-regular employed workers" stood at approximately 1.8 million, accounting for 8.7% of non-regular workers, a proportion that has remained below 10% for two consecutive years.

What deserves attention is that Japan's long-term demographic changes occurred concurrently with changes in the labor market. Vital statistics from the MHLW show that Japan's marriage rate was 5.9 per thousand couples in 1990, declining to 4.1 in 2025. In 2025, Japan's total fertility rate further dropped to 1.14, with the number of births at 671,200. These changes certainly cannot be simply attributed to non-regular employment. Marriage and childbirth are influenced by multiple factors, including housing costs, gender divisions of labor, education costs, income levels, changes in values, female employment, and population structure. Consequently, a direct causal relationship cannot be established between "an increase in non-regular employment" and "low fertility rates".

Nonetheless, the Japanese case illustrates at least one point. When young people's employment, income, and career expectations undergo long-term changes, demographic behavior may also be affected. For China, this issue is particularly worth observing in advance.

China remains in a stage of continuous adjustment in urbanization and population mobility, with massive numbers of youth moving from schools into cities and from families into society. If this generation's employment methods become increasingly flexible while institutions such as housing, social security, career advancement, marriage, and public services remain primarily designed around stable work units, a new structural contradiction may emerge. Work methods have already changed, but lifestyles and institutional arrangements have not fully kept pace.

In the past, once an individual obtained a stable job, problems regarding income, housing, social security, and urban integration could often be solved step by step. In the future, an individual may have work yet lack a long-term stable "work unit". They may have income yet lack a stable occupational identity. Likewise, they may be able to live in a city yet not necessarily truly enter urban society through employment relationships. This means that the gigification of youth may ultimately transcend being merely a labor market issue, gradually evolving into a demographic development issue and a social structure issue.

IV. From the "unit city" to the "platform city": how the gigification of youth changes the logic of urban development

(i) From "employment-driven urban integration" to "employment–urban integration decoupling"

The "unit city" referred to here points to a long-standing logic of urban operation. An individual obtained work and income through a work unit, acquired social security through the work unit and employment relationship, and subsequently resolved housing, children's education, medical care, and other issues through income and security. The work unit was therefore not only a workplace, but also an important connecting point for an individual to enter urban society. Particularly for workers entering cities from rural areas, stable employment often meant stable income, and also meant the ability to reside in the city long-term, raise children, and form new social relationships.

However, this relationship is becoming more complex. In 2025, the total number of migrant workers nationwide in China reached 301.15 million, among whom 180.06 million were out-of-town migrant workers, and the number of rural migrant workers residing in towns and cities at the end of the year reached 130.92 million. Meanwhile, in 2025, out-of-town migrant workers migrating across provinces stood at 67.65 million, a decrease of 75,000 from the previous year, whereas intra-provincial migration increased by 2.1 million. This demonstrates that population mobility is presenting increasingly complex forms, with intra-provincial mobility, local employment, and mobility between different tiers of cities increasingly deserving attention.

For cities, this means what needs to be accommodated in the future is not only people with fixed work units and stable positions, but also individuals in diverse employment forms such as ride-hailing drivers, food delivery couriers, freelancers, and project-based workers. They are all urban residents, yet the ways they establish connections with the city are not entirely identical. An important capacity in future urban competition may no longer be simply how many jobs can be provided, but whether people engaged in different employment forms can manage to live here and obtain stable public services and development opportunities.

This can be referred to as the city's "employment carrying capacity". It includes not only the quantity of jobs, but also employment opportunities at different levels, vocational training, basic security, public services, and an individual's ability to remain within urban society even after changing platforms, enterprises, and professions. The logic of urban development has consequently begun to transition further from "attracting enterprises" to "accommodating workers".

(ii) From work-unit-based to individual-based social security

The most direct issue that the gigification of youth brings to urban governance is social security. Under traditional employment relationships, there is a relatively clear link between social security and labor relations. When workers enter an enterprise, the enterprise and the individual pay social insurance in accordance with the system, and when workers change jobs, the relationship is then transferred. However, when an individual works for multiple platforms simultaneously, or frequently changes enterprises, projects, and tasks, the original security model based on a single labor relationship encounters new problems. Therefore, a core issue that the social security system needs to address is whether social security should be tied to a position or follow the worker.

China has already worked to explore solutions. As of the end of October 2025, pilot enterprises for occupational injury insurance for new-form employment personnel reached 11, the pilot provinces expanded to 17, and a cumulative 23.25 million people were insured. Compared with traditional work-related injury insurance, this pilot introduces an "insurance for every order" model, with premiums calculated based on each order. This approach better matches the way platform workers work. In 2025, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other departments further expanded the pilot of occupational injury insurance for new-form employment personnel, promoted platform enterprises to pay occupational injury insurance fees for eligible new-form employment personnel, and established a national information platform.

Old-age and medical security are also evolving in this direction. As of the end of 2024, the number of flexible employment personnel nationwide participating in the basic endowment insurance for enterprise employees had reached 70.57 million, while 66.159 million were participating in the basic medical insurance for enterprise employees. In the future, an individual's decision to change platforms, move to another city, or shift from enterprise employment to platform-based employment should not mean starting their social security from scratch. Therefore, what cities need to establish is not merely "work-unit-based security", but a more fluid system of personal security that can also provide seamless cross-regional coverage.

This change is particularly important for cities. If individuals can enjoy a relatively complete urban life only after securing stable employment with a particular work unit, then it will be difficult for cities to truly accommodate the growing population engaged in flexible employment. Conversely, if public services such as housing, medical care, old-age security, occupational injury protection, and children's education can increasingly be linked to individuals as "regular residents", rather than to a single employment relationship, then changes in employment forms need not become a fundamental obstacle to the stability of urban life. The Five-Year Action Plan for Deepening the Implementation of a People-Centered New Urbanization Strategy, issued by the State Council in 2024, proposed improving the system under which basic public services are provided based on an individual's place of habitual residence, and promoting the provision of relevant public services to be individual-based. Relevant policies introduced in 2026 further proposed promoting the provision of basic public services based on individuals' actual places of residence. This provides an important institutional direction for the future development of the "platform city", where the basic unit of urban service provision is gradually shifting from "work-unit employees" to "regular urban residents".

(iii) From "work-unit community" to "platform + community"

After employment relationships become more flexible, cities will face another issue, and that is how stable social relationships are established among people. In the past, many people's social relationships came from their work units. Under this, colleagues, superiors and subordinates, trade unions, unit canteens, and unit dormitories could all become part of social connections. Later, the functions of work units gradually weakened, and communities became an important vehicle for urban social organization. With the development of gigification, a new structure may emerge in the future, where platforms are responsible for connecting tasks, while communities are responsible for connecting lives.

Platforms can connect workers with available jobs, but they cannot fulfill the functions of a complete urban community. Although food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and freelancers earn their incomes through platforms, their medical care, education, old-age security, housing, leisure, and social interactions remain embedded in concrete urban spaces. Platforms, therefore, cannot replace cities. Platforms determine "how work is connected", while communities address "how life is connected", and cities provide the public services that sustain everyday life.

This also means that traditional urban spaces need to undergo some changes. In the past, spatial boundaries among office work, living, socializing, and resting were often relatively clear. In the future, co-working spaces, community employment service stations, worker stations, vocational training spaces, and community commerce may all become new work and social connection nodes for flexible workers. A community space where people can rest, recharge, drink water, and obtain career counseling and labor rights services may be more important to platform workers than traditional large office buildings.

The gigification of youth is also changing the usage logic of urban office spaces in China. In the past, enterprises accommodated formal employees through centralized office spaces. With the increase in remote work, platform collaboration, project-based employment, and outsourcing, enterprises' demand for fixed workstations may change. In the first half of 2026, the office vacancy rate in Beijing declined for the sixth consecutive quarter to 17.8%, while the vacancy rates in Shanghai and Guangzhou still reached 24.5% and 22.4% respectively, and rents generally faced downward pressure. These changes were influenced by multiple factors such as the macroeconomy and supply-demand adjustments, but they also indicate that commercial buildings in central urban areas are shifting from incremental expansion to stock operation.

This does not mean centralized offices will disappear, but that the value of buildings may shift from accommodating more workers to supporting more high-value functions and industrial connections. Enterprises may not necessarily need a large number of fixed workstations. Even so, functions such as research and development, decision-making, treasury, professional services, customer communication, and industrial collaboration still require space. Consequently, the focus of urban spaces may also shift from standardized office areas to more elastic, mixed, and small-scale workspaces. In the past, people returned to the community after work; in the future, more people may work within the community itself.

(iv) From "employment concentrated in large cities" to "employment shared across cities"

The gigification may also change population relationships among cities. In the process of traditional urbanization, large cities often possessed more industries, higher wages, and more positions, with populations concentrating toward large cities following job opportunities. However, the platform economy and remote work have reduced the spatial constraints of some work. Not all work requires workers to enter enterprise offices every day, nor must all services be completed by local populations in large cities.

For high-skilled talent, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and innovation activities, industrial agglomeration in large cities remains very important. At the same time, however, some work with low spatial constraints can be completed in a broader range of cities and counties. A new urban division of labor may form in the future. Large cities will increasingly shoulder high-end industries, innovation, headquarters, professional services, and complex employment. Meanwhile, medium and small cities can undertake more livelihood services, manufacturing, professional service outsourcing, and digital employment. Additionally, county-level regions and small towns can connect to a broader market through platforms.

China's national migrant worker data for 2025 has already shown that the intra-provincial floating population reached 112.41 million, accounting for 62.4% of out-migrant workers, which is significantly higher than the 67.65 million who moved across provinces. Future urban development should not simply mean continued concentration of young people in a few large cities. What deserves more attention is whether platforms can bring more employment opportunities to cities of different tiers, and whether cities can retain these employment, training, and service opportunities locally.

This is also where county seats and medium-and-small cities need to re-understand the platform economy. Platforms are not only consumption channels, but may also become employment infrastructure. If a county seat can connect its local population with the national market through e-commerce, live streaming, instant retail, digital services, remote work, and vocational training, it may form a development path different from traditional industrial investment attraction. Of course, platform employment can similarly bring problems such as low income, low skills, and income fluctuation. What truly matters is whether cities can convert platform traffic into local employment capacity, transform short-term tasks into long-term skills, and translate online income into stable urban life.

(v) From "spatial city" to "employment city"

Returning to the initial question, why does the gigification of youth ultimately become an urban problem? Work is never just work; it determines a person's income and also influences housing capacity, consumption capacity, social security, family choices, and a sense of urban belonging. In the past, a person entered a city through a work unit. In the future, a person may enter the market through a platform and then enter the city through a community. These two processes appear to simply differ in employment methods, but behind them actually correspond to two different urban organizational logics. Enterprises organize labor, work units connect individuals, and cities accommodate work units. On the other hand, platforms organize tasks, communities connect individuals, and cities accommodate populations.

What China's future cities truly need to change is not just office buildings, residential housing, and commercial spaces, but the connection mechanism between cities and people. Cities need to progressively move from "position-accommodating cities" to "population-accommodating cities"; from "work-unit security" to "personal security"; from "registered-population services" to "regular-resident services"; and from "enterprises providing career development" to "cities and markets jointly providing career development".

This means that urban renewal cannot solely renew buildings and roads, but also needs to incorporate "employment carrying capacity". Employment services need to cover freelancers, platform workers, and project-based workers, while public spaces need to adapt to the work and life demands of flexible workers. Public services, too, need to be allocated more according to regular residents, as well as helping workers transition from "accepting tasks" to "learning skills", and further for career transition and increasing income.

Ultimately, the greatest change brought by the gigification of youth may not be how many riders, drivers, and freelancers there are in the city, but rather that a person no longer needs to possess a stable work unit to become a stable urban resident. In this sense, the "platform city" is not a simple replacement for the "work-unit city", but a new possibility for cities to organize populations and employment. What future cities in China truly need to build is not only industrial platforms and digital platforms, but a new set of urban infrastructure capable of connecting employment, security, population, communities, and public services.