Training programs create jobs in winter sports

A training program has helped 1,400 people land jobs related to winter sports in Northwest Beijing's Yanqing district, which will host some competitions during the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics, according to the district bureau of human resources and social security.

The program, launched in May 2018, offered free training for locals to become professional snowboarding coaches, ice-makers or alpine skiing judges, providing more people with better employment while nurturing talent to ensure successful winter events this year.

Li Wei, a judge in the test luge match last year, was still waiting to hear if he would become a formal judge for the luge competition during the Winter Olympics next month.

Li was a social worker in Yanqing and started learning to ski at the age of 35 when he "rolled down the hill for beginners for my debut." He never thought that one day he would be a professional judge at an international luge competition.

In 2017, he joined the rural skiing team and began training at nights and on weekends through free courses. He later obtained certificates for ski instruction and judging luge.

"By joining training programs, more villagers and young people participated in and excelled at skiing and other winter sports," Li said, adding that many of them were truck drivers, welders and housewives before participating in the programs.

A year ago, Zhao Bing was a chef assistant in Hongsi village. He learned skiing from the training program and finally strode out of the kitchen.

With the certificates permitted by both China and Switzerland, Zhao became a coach at the biggest ski resort in the district and has earned at least 30,000 yuan ($4,700) this snow season.

At a skating rink in Yanqing, a man drove an ice resurfacer-which smooths the ice-after some teenage speed skaters had trained.

Excavation driver Wang Weimin's life has been changed by a training course for maintaining the ice in skating rinks.

The 50-year-old learned about the new job when he took his daughter for a skating class.

"I'm really interested in making and watering ice because the rink quality actually affects the skaters' performances, and I can improve my skills according to my daughter's demands during practice."

After half a year of training, Wang was employed at a skating rink in Yanqing and is responsible for maintaining the ice.

So far, the program has organized more than 100,000 training sessions, covering all villages and focusing on 83 new jobs to serve the winter games, said Dong Yanyan, an official with the bureau.

"More than 7,300 people obtained certificates for vocational skills and later found well-paid jobs," she said.