My country's leather industry has made significant progress in building its occupational standard system. On July 22, two national occupational standards, "Leather and Leather Products Processing Worker" and "Fur and Fur Products Processing Worker," successfully passed their initial review. This marks a new stage in the development of core skill-based job standards for the leather industry, further improving the industry's skills training, competency assessment, and career development system.
Occupational standards are fundamental documents for skilled personnel training and serve as the core basis for vocational training, skill level certification, skills competitions, and professional textbook compilation. The development of these two standards incorporates the latest industry developments, systematically optimizes occupational functions, job content, skill requirements, and theoretical knowledge items, closely aligning with the industry's current state and future technological trends, significantly enhancing the standards' scientific rigor, practicality, and forward-looking perspective.
Currently, the domestic leather industry is accelerating its transformation towards digitalization, intelligentization, and green development. New processes are constantly being updated, and new materials and equipment are being widely implemented, placing new demands on frontline skilled workers. Industry insiders indicate that this upgrade of occupational standards clearly defines the competency framework for skilled personnel in the new era, providing important guidance for enterprises to cultivate skilled workers adapted to industry changes.
Data shows that in 2025, key enterprises in China's leather industry achieved sales revenue exceeding 750 billion yuan, of which leather and leather products accounted for 410 billion yuan and fur and fur products accounted for 13.3 billion yuan. As the world's largest leather producer and exporter, my country's leather industry boasts a complete manufacturing chain and a large workforce. Establishing a comprehensive occupational standard system and opening up career advancement channels for skilled personnel are key to promoting high-quality development of the industry.
Li Yuzhong, Chairman of the China Leather Industry Association, stated that following the revision of the national occupational standards for "Footwear Designer" and "Leather Goods Designer," these two processing trade standards have achieved a significant breakthrough, marking another important achievement in the construction of the industry's standard system. The standard development takes into account both current production realities and long-term development trends, accurately reflecting the industry's current technological level while guiding practitioners to continuously improve their comprehensive abilities, thus solidifying the talent foundation for the industry's sustainable development.
Industry experts explained that national occupational standards, distinct from product standards and process specifications, focus on the unified standardization of practitioners' comprehensive professional abilities and are an important cornerstone of modern vocational education and skills evaluation systems. Against the backdrop of the country's vigorous development of a skilled workforce, the guiding value of occupational standards continues to stand out. This drafting process emphasizes a deep alignment between job skills and industry needs: it fully incorporates practical experience from frontline enterprises to ensure standards are relevant to production scenarios; it also considers the development of enterprises in different regions and of different sizes, rationally classifying skill levels to provide clear career paths for skilled workers and offering a unified reference for internal talent development and skills assessment.
Both standards have successfully passed the initial review, which will promote more standardized and orderly talent development in the leather industry and help establish a more mature talent cultivation, evaluation, and appointment mechanism. Subsequent work will proceed in an orderly manner, including public consultation, revisions, and final review. Once officially released and implemented, the standards will become an important institutional support for the transformation and upgrading of the leather industry, helping to build a knowledgeable, skilled, and innovative industrial workforce and continuously enhancing the international competitive advantage of my country's leather industry.
