QINGDAO -- Qingdao City of east China's Shandong Province has officially launched a new round of apprenticeship training programs to build a technical talent pool this year, in efforts to support industrial development.

China reportedly faces a shortfall of 20 million in skilled talent population. Against this background, Qingdao, as an eastern industrial port city, is striving to build itself into a "craftsman city." With a complete industrial chain and a large number of manufacturing factories, the city has taken the training of technicians in demand as an important task.
The Qingdao Technician College is a key part of this task. Its students are trained at the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) factory.
Zhang Guangjun, a student majoring in welding technology at the college, recently won the first place in the robot welding technology project of the Qingdao vocational skills competition.
"This honor has made me more determined to become an excellent craftsman. My goal is to become a CRRC welding engineer like my teacher," said Zhang.
"I'm now mainly responsible for the robot welding course. Through the competition, it also proves that our teaching is effective," said Liang Kaiqiang, a teacher at the college.
"According to the 2025 skilled talent demand report released by the Qingdao Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, more than 100 job types have been included in the vocational skills training catalog, and welders are marked as urgently needed talents. We have formulated policies for industrial training and school training to ensure the supply and demand of talents. Qingdao hopes that through these efforts, more people can find employment, and train the technical talents that factories really need," said Liu Xuejun, director of the Qingdao Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security.
According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, starting from 2025, for three consecutive years, more than 10 million people will be eligible for subsidized vocational skills training each year. Great craftsmen are not only inheritors of vocational skills but also an important part of national development.