China's youth are riding the Internet entrepreneurship bandwagon to create their own employment

A laptop, a broadband connection and a pile of express delivery orders are all clues that 26-year-old Qu Wen was no longer a member of the nine-to-five white collar brigade. Three years after graduating, Qu now manages an online store on Taobao, China's fast-growing online shopping bazaar, selling handbags, cosmetics, accessories and other goods. Her online store now has three employees, and daily turnover surpassing 10,000 yuan ($1,612). Last year, the entrepreneur also opened a retail outlet in her hometown in Shandong Province.

New growth point

Qu is not alone in her career path. China's booming e-commerce industry is providing new job options for Chinese college students.

A research report released in February by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) credited China's Internet business boom with helping to create more than 10 million jobs and greatly easing employment pressures. Internet businesses have become a good alternative to the mainstream labor market.

But Internet businesses are about more than just opening an online shop. Software applications and development, and social networking, financial and other online services are also popular and important Internet businesses.

New entrepreneur-focused cafés have sprung up in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang Province's Hangzhou, and are popular among Internet entrepreneurs. The cafés, like Beta, Garage and 3W in Zhongguancun, Beijing's very own Silicon Valley, have gradually become regular meeting places for web product managers, User Interface designers, coders and others who are active in the Internet business world. Organizing and leveraging their resources to influence and improve China's Internet environment is a major concern for Internet entrepreneurs.

"The Internet goes beyond physical restrictions, so our power can be magnified to an enormous scale," said Li Xueling, the founder and CEO of YY Inc., a Chinese online game portal.

Li, born in the 1970s, founded his company in 2005 and saw it make its NASDAQ debut in November 2012. He said it's important that entrepreneurs understand that the normal business process of trial and error is much faster for online companies because of the Internet's rapid rate of evolution.

Whether they are CEOs of listed companies or owners of online shops, young people make up the majority of those working in China's Internet ventures, according to the MHRSS report. The report also indicated that almost half of the surveyed Internet users held an associate's or bachelor's degree, and another 33.4 percent had a middle school education or had been trained in technical schools.

Flexibility and diversity

Internet businesses also allow more freedom and diversity in employment choices.

In 2012, a record 6.8 million people graduated from universities in China. As an increasing number of graduates struggle to find suitable employment, more and more of them are looking for opportunities in the more flexible arena of online commerce. Many young entrepreneurs say doing business online keeps costs low, increases efficiency and also offers opportunities to make friends and realize dreams, according to the report.

"I am looking forward to making some changes to the music field. My website helps users stream music they like," said Shi Kaiwen, 24, founder of music website Jing.fm, in April 2011. As a three-time entrepreneur, Shi began to dabble in web enterprises by starting music websites while he was still in school. He founded Koocu.com in 2008 and Saylikes.com in 2010.

Most entrepreneurs say the low financial requirements, compared to the costs of establishing a more traditional business, help operations stay flexible, said Zhang Xiaojian, President of the China Association for Employment Promotion.

Unlike his peers who gravitated toward the civil service, Li Hua took a job with an online business after graduation. He agrees with Zhang's statement. As an operations manager with an online shop after graduation, he enjoys a monthly salary of over 5,000 yuan ($806), and can work from home. This allows him more flexibility in his working hours, and he doesn't have to commute to work.

Solid foundation

China had 50.9 million new Internet users in 2012, bringing the country's total to 564 million at the end of that year, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Center. The number of online shoppers in that year reached 242 million, a 24.8-percent increase over numbers from 2011.

The rapid expansion of Internet use in China has provided a very broad space for the development of China's e-commerce enterprises. According to statistics from market research company IDC, 8.1 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion) worth of transactions took place on China's e-commerce market in 2012, a year-on-year increase of 27.9 percent.

Research also shows that Taobao had helped create 4.68 million jobs as of December 2012. More than half of those working these new jobs are between the ages of 20 to 32, and many are college students who have founded their own businesses online.  

Policy support needed

The rapid development of Internet businesses will require a lot more skilled individuals. People with strong backgrounds in e-business marketing, management, technology and law are most needed, according to the MHRSS report.

"We should pay attention to how to cultivate people who are more market-oriented and suitable for the development of society, while strengthening Internet market supervision and management," said Xiao Mingzheng, Director of the Human Resource Development and Management Research Center of Peking University.

Online businesses offer young people a wide range of new job options, but they come with a special set of challenges and difficulties. For example, a lack of social experience, an unreal and overly optimistic market forecast and financing difficulties, are all disadvantages of operating online.

The report suggested that, to further boost employment through online business, more measures, including credit support and tax exemptions, should be rolled out to help small start-ups stay financially sound. The government should also guide private funds to invest in Internet businesses with growth potential, it added.

Qu Wen believes that the government should further simplify the procedures for starting a business or reduce taxes for college students setting up their own businesses. "In this way, the e-commerce industry could offer more job options to college students," he said.