Skilled Craftsmen Competing on Stage for "Skills" - Frontline Observation of the Second National Skills Competition

The second National Skills Competition was held in Tianjin from September 16th to 19th. 4045 skilled players stand out from hundreds of thousands of competitors, representing the highest level of skill competition in related projects in China. They compete in 109 events and use their skills to illuminate the future.

As the comprehensive national vocational skills competition with the highest specifications, the most projects, the largest scale, and the highest level in China, this competition has further expanded and increased compared to the first competition. The competition categories involve a total of 15 national economic industry categories, covering 75% of the national economic industry categories.

Practice skills and pursue dreams on the field of competition

Entering the arena, industries such as Industry 4.0 and cloud computing represent new driving forces for advanced manufacturing; Aircraft maintenance, rail vehicle technology and other competitions demonstrate the support capacity of China's infrastructure; In competitions such as flower art, tea art, fashion technology, as well as health and social care, which are closely related to the daily lives of the people... In each competition, the contestants continuously climb the peak of their skills.

The contestants participated in the competition of industrial robot system operation project at the National Convention and Exhibition Center. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Ran

In the aircraft maintenance project located at the National Convention and Exhibition Center, the main venue of the competition, 22-year-old athlete Lv Yueqiang is carefully inspecting the helicopter. He, who just graduated from the Mechanical Design and Manufacturing major at Tianjin Mechanical and Electrical Vocational and Technical College this year, has been conducting high-intensity training for this competition since February. "Aircraft maintenance tests the contestants' ability to strive for excellence and compete in the millimeter." Lv Yueqiang said that during the competition, he often had to practice the "part bending" process in the aircraft structural repair module thousands of times a day during training.

"Sometimes I feel numb after practicing, but I still insist on becoming an outstanding craftsman," said Lv Yueqiang. With this drive, he successfully represented Tianjin City in this competition with superb skills.

Competition between master's and doctoral students in the same field

In this showdown of skilled craftsmen, not only employees, students from universities and technical schools, but also doctoral and master's students from different provinces participated.

"Most highly educated contestants are concentrated in the fields of new professions and digital technology skills, indicating the trend of integrated development of technical skills and an increasing demand for the improvement of technical skills of talents with different educational levels." said Wang Xiaojun, Deputy Director of the Vocational Capacity Building Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Feng Wei, a lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, is one of the participating PhDs. This time, he participated in the newly added intelligent manufacturing engineering technology project.

"In the competition, we need to use technologies such as digital twins, big data, and deep learning." Feng Wei said that as a teacher participating in the competition, he has a more personal experience of the training system for the new profession of "intelligent manufacturing engineering technicians". He hopes to understand the ability requirements of the new profession and cultivate students more targeted.

The contestants participated in the mobile robot project competition at the National Convention and Exhibition Center. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Ran

New professions attract attention

More new professional competitions are attracting the attention of the audience. These days, Xue Maoyun, the chief judge of the Internet marketing project, will arrive at the match very early.

"For the professional skills competition, Internet marketing is a new event. The competition requires the combination of traditional sales and modern information technology to comprehensively investigate the digital marketing ability of the players." Xue Maoyun said that the setting of this event is to meet the demand of the digital economy for new talents.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the total number of skilled talents in China has exceeded 200 million, accounting for more than 26% of the total employed population; There are over 60 million highly skilled talents. Various skilled talents are active in the production line and at the forefront of innovation, becoming an important force in promoting high-quality development.

At the National Convention and Exhibition Center, this is a scene inside the venue where the competition is held for exhibition and exchange activities. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Ran

"Good technological achievements must be transformed with excellent skilled talents as the link and support," said He Xinyuan, the general manager of General Technology Group Machine Tool Co., Ltd. We hope to recruit players who have achieved excellent results in the competition to the enterprise.

Climbing skill peaks and reserving talents for a manufacturing powerhouse. At the opening ceremony, Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Wang Xiaoping stated that the competition aims to promote training, training, and construction through competitions, and continuously improve the mechanisms for cultivating, utilizing, evaluating, and motivating skilled talents.