Job seekers switch to online business
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Wang Dengfeng works as an interior decorator, but he is never splattered with paint at the end of the day and he has not once hurt his back moving furniture.
Instead of decorating stores and homes in the three-dimensional world, the 31-year-old designs and beautifies shops in the virtual world, making them appealing to online shoppers.
The career earns him between 5,000 yuan ($735) and 10,000 yuan each month, an income considered handsome, even for white-collar workers in big cities.
Wang is among an increasing number of Chinese young people earning their living online.
According to a recent popular online post, there are at least 36 kinds of online jobs, including online hourly workers and online shop assistants.
It is not known how many people make their living in the online world. Many work online part-time.
One of the most successful online workers is Kuang Baoqiang, from Yangjiang, Guangdong province, who earned more than 100,000 yuan last year as a professional blogger.
Kuang started to write blogs about basketball on sina.com.cn in 2006.
He has posted some 1,200 blogs, and attracted more than 38 million visits so far.
His popularity earned him a contract last year from a domestic firm that makes sports products that wanted to advertise on his blog.
Vivian Lin, from Jiangsu province, failed to secure a satisfying job after she graduated from college in 2005. Last month, after being unemployed for six months, she opened an online shop "Lin club" in the hopes of following in the footsteps of such online success stories as Kuang and Wang.
"A satisfying job is not easy to find nowadays," she said. "But shopping and web surfing happen to be my two hobbies, so I decided to give it a shot."
The shop has not got off the ground yet, but she has high hopes.
"I have much more to learn before I can make real money through this job," she said.
Experts believe online employment will become increasingly important for unemployed young people.
Chen Xinming, a professor with South China Normal University, said young people should be encouraged to explore the option. But Chen said more study of the growing sector is needed to make sure young online workers are not exploited.
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