A RECENT report by Chinese jobseeking website Liepin shows that new job offers related to artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models have surged for 2023 fresh graduates, up 172.53% year on year.

The number of college graduates in China in 2023 is expected to hit a record 11.58 million.

In the first quarter of 2023, the increase in demand for AI product managers, content operators and natural language processing engineers exceeded 300%, according to Boss Zhipin, an online hiring and job-hunting platform.

AI Generated Content (AIGC), which refers to the use of AI technology to generate content, is considered a new form of content production, including AI painting, AI writing, AI programming, etc.

Research by Boss Zhipin shows that since 2022, over 80% of AIGC positions resulted from the internet industry. In 2023, however, there is strong growth for AIGC-related positions in the entertainment as well as pharmaceutical and medical industries.

At the same time, new professions have been created in AIGC-related areas, such as prompts engineer, 3D-AIGC algorithm engineer, ChatGPT optimizer, ChatGPT application engineer, and so on.

According to data from Liepin, average annual salaries for job positions related to intelligent manufacturing, AIGC and AI foundation models are the highest among fresh graduate recruitments, averaging at 330,200 yuan (US$46,379), 303,600 yuan and 279,900 yuan per year, respectively.

Since 2022, these AIGC-related opportunities are mainly in the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with Beijing, Shanghai and Zhejiang Province taking the lead.

According to Boss Zhipin, jobs related to AIGC have high educational requirements, with over 80% of the positions requiring a bachelor’s or master’s degree. There is a significant increase in demand for PhD graduates specializing in AI foundation models, with year-on-year growth of 430%.

According to Liepin, the three areas that have seen the greatest application growth from 2023 college graduates are: intelligent manufacturing, AIGC and AI foundation models, with year-on-year growth of 303.12%, 297.27% and 235.25%, respectively. (Xinhua)