China Services Job Gains Key for Shift to Consumption

Seven years ago, Cheng Shuangping quit her assembly job at an electronics company in central China to move to Beijing to work as a waitress and a clothing saleswoman before managing a foot-massage spa.

“The assembly work was boring and the pay was meager,” Cheng, 34, said in an interview at Oriental Foot Massage near the Olympics stadium. Now, she earns about 6,000 yuan ($960) a month, or four times her pay in her home city of Hefei, which has about one-third the capital’s population. Services employment has climbed for four years, according to surveys by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics, while official data show manufacturing jobs shrinking for the past eight months.