QINGDAO, March 10th (AMSP/CGTN) – – Qingdao, an industrial city in northern China, is also known as the “City of Craftsmen.” In 2025, the city officially launched a new round of apprenticeship training programs, aiming to provide support for key industrial development. Our reporter Aaron Liu visits the CRRC factory to see how high-speed trains are manufactured and the importance of technical talent to enterprises.
In the 21st century, what is the most valuable? Talent! In China, the shortfall in skilled talent is as high as 20 million. How important are skilled workers to enterprises? We go to CRRC Qingdao Sifang workshop to find the answer. The first stop is the welding engineer’s studio.
Zhang Heli, a senior technician with 16 years of welding experience, says a high-speed train car has tens of thousands of welds. Under high-speed operation at 350 kilometers per hour, the welds need to meet the safety requirements for high-speed travel.
“Welding needs to refer to various standards, including speed, angle… especially for high-speed trains, the welding requirements for these values are very high,” said Zhang Heli, Senior Engineer of CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd. .
Qingdao, as a northern industrial city, has put forward the construction of a “craftsman city.” With a complete industrial chain and a large number of manufacturing factories, the demand and training of technical talents have become an important task for this industrial city.
“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 Guangjun, Qingdao Technicians College.
Qingdao Technician College is a key part of this task. Zhang Guangjun, a student majoring in welding technology at Qingdao Technician College, just won the first place in the robot welding technology project of the Qingdao vocational skills competition.
“I am now mainly responsible for the robot welding course. Through the competition, it also proves that our teaching is effective,” Qingdao Technicians College Teacher Liang Kaiqiang underscored.
“According to the 2025 skills 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,” Qingdao Human Resources and Social Security Bureau Director Liu Xuejun told CGTN.
“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,” Liu Xuejun said.
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.
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