Yiwu, a city known as the “World Supermarket”, has a strong momentum of foreign trade development and a surge in demand for jobs in various industries.
The annual job gap exceeds 20,000, which is a strong signal sent by Yiwu’s cross-border e-commerce industry to talents across the country.
In 2025, the cross-border e-commerce transaction volume will be 168 billion yuan and a year-on-year growth of 19.9%, supporting a huge industrial ecosystem.
Among the approximately 800,000 e-commerce market entities in Yiwu, more than 40% have been involved in cross-border business, and a digital trade highland that “buys globally and sells globally” is gradually taking shape.
This gap of 20,000 people intuitively reflects that the speed of industry expansion far exceeds the speed of talent supply.
The expansion of the cross-border e-commerce industry is directly reflected in the salary. A mature cross-border e-commerce operations manager can earn a monthly salary of 12-40k. It is normal for an operations director who can coordinate the overall situation to have an annual salary ranging from 200,000 to more than 400,000 yuan.
In 2026, the industry will focus on cultivating new talents such as AI applications, cross-border live broadcast operations, and overseas warehouse management. The demand for jobs is not only an increase in quantity, but also an iteration of skills.
In 2025, Yiwu will carry out cross-border e-commerce training for 80,000 people and attract an inflow of more than 100,000 young e-commerce talents.
From “manufacturing” to “intelligent manufacturing”, jobs with an annual salary of one million are emerging.
In a recruitment trip to universities in Hunan in 2026, intelligent manufacturing-related positions accounted for more than 25% of the total shortage of positions, providing nearly 600 positions.
For example, Geely Volvo’s Aurora Bay Engine Company is eager for graduates in mechanics, electronics, software and other majors. It offers top talents an annual salary of one million yuan and is equipped with a full life cycle training system.
Behind this is the “hard-core” transformation of Yiwu’s industry. In 2025, Yiwu’s automobile manufacturing industry’s industrial added value growth will reach an astonishing 163.9%, and the growth rate of computer, communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing will also reach as high as 114.8%.
The surge in industrial production has been transmitted to the export side. From January to February 2026, Yiwu’s auto parts exports increased by 100.8% year-on-year.
Logistics is the lifeline when goods go overseas.
Yiwu’s innovative “inspect first and then ship” supervision model has increased the efficiency of cross-border e-commerce exports by about 30% and reduced costs by 15%.
Behind this efficiency revolution is the support of a large and professional logistics talent team.
With the full opening of new channels such as “consolidated warehouse + sea-rail combined transport + express ship”, Yiwu’s demand for logistics talents with an international perspective has surged.
A logistics process manager with more than 8 years of experience can earn a monthly salary of 25-45k; a supply chain director who can control the overall situation can earn a monthly salary between 20-40k.
Yiwu Railway Port Consolidation Warehouse’s business volume will increase by 65.54% year-on-year in 2025, and its export value will increase by 266.3%. The rapid expansion of business has directly translated into continuous calls for positions such as international logistics salesmen, cross-border logistics planners, and overseas warehouse operation specialists. The annual talent gap is expected to exceed 10,000 people.
Under the brilliance of new technologies and new business formats, the fundamentals of traditional foreign trade have not only not shrunk, but have shown strong resilience.
In 2025, the number of recruitment positions for foreign trade sales specialists in Jinhua area (mainly Yiwu) has increased by 310% compared with 2024.
This corresponds to the solid fundamentals of Yiwu market’s procurement and trade exports of 600.46 billion yuan, accounting for 70.7% of the national share.
At the same time, the qualitative change of the foreign trade “circle of friends” has brought new job connotations.
From January to February 2026, Yiwu’s import and export volume to ASEAN increased by 99% year-on-year, nearly doubling, and its import and export to “Belt and Road” countries accounted for more than 70% of Yiwu’s total foreign trade value.
The diversification of the market means that companies no longer only need foreign trade staff who can speak English, but also need “regional experts” who understand minority languages, are familiar with the market culture of Southeast Asia or Africa, and can carry out localized marketing. The demand for foreign trade positions is evolving from “general-purpose” to “deep cultivation”.
Yiwu’s employment story is essentially a series of interlocking digital chains: Upgrading of foreign trade structure (exports of mechanical and electrical products account for 36.8%) → Promoting high-end manufacturing (automobile manufacturing industry growth rate 163.9%) → Generating technical jobs (annual salary of one million yuan) → Digitalization of trade (cross-border e-commerce transaction volume of 168 billion yuan) → Creating operations and logistics jobs (a gap of more than 30,000 yuan) →
Market diversification (99% growth rate for ASEAN) → stimulate regional talent demand.
Every number in this chain is expanding, eventually converging into a torrent of more than 100,000 people pouring into Yiwu for employment and entrepreneurship every year in the past five years.
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