To encourage workers from all areas to achieve high-level skills, the Shenzhen government awarded hundreds of outstanding workers with recognized professional skills at their posts at the city’s talent industrial park in Futian District on Tuesday, sznews.com reported.
Ai Xuefeng, vice mayor of Shenzhen, attended the awards ceremony and presented prizes to the winners on behalf of Shenzhen at the 44th World Skills Competition held in Abu Dhabi last year.
In October 2017, three contestants from Shenzhen won a silver medal and two bronze medals for their outstanding performance at the global competition, making Shenzhen one of the cities with the most medal winners in China.
The World Skills Competition is known as the best global vocational skills competition with the largest influence in the world. To reward the winners and their technical guidance teams, the Shenzhen government granted 400,000 yuan (US$63,512) to the silver medal winner and 200,000 yuan to the two bronze medal winners. Their technical guidance teams were also rewarded with the same amount of money.
In addition, the three winners were also recognized as the annual skill elites for 2017 and will be sponsored to further their professional skills overseas.
Fang Ruizhi, the competition’s silver medal winner in graphic design, is currently a student at Shenzhen Institute of Technology. She attributed her victory to the city’s great focus on vocational education and training.
“Our courses are very practical and we are offered many opportunities to work with corporations so that we can get more hands-on experiences,” said Fang.
Meanwhile, 300 skillful workers in Shenzhen also received governmental subsidies, among whom nine working in various fields were granted the title, “Shenzhen Craftsman,” and each were rewarded with a 500,000-yuan prize.
According to the report, the city’s municipal and district-level human resources departments issued a total of 150 million yuan to approximately 280,000 people to support their professional training last year.
Wu Yinxia, a deputy section chief of the vocational capacity building office at the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, said compared to other first-tier cities, Shenzhen still has a lot of room to improve in terms of cultivating skilled talents.
