Are you a foreign language translator who also knows sign language? If so, your skills may qualify you for professional status.

Sign language translator is one of the 10 new professions the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MLSS) approved last week. And the 10 are the eighth batch of professions to be recognized since 2004.

The nine other professions approved last week are expo designer, jewellery evaluator, career adviser, natural disaster information expert, nurse for disabled children, inter-city rail transit repairer, digital control programmer, complex material test controller, synthetic material test engineer and room decoration quality inspector.

The MLSS has recognized 86 new professions since August 2004. The professions were identified and appraised by experts before the approval.

Apart from the 10 new professions recognized last week, three more are under consideration: repairers of auto windows, environmental art designers and electro-acoustic musicians.

The ministry draws up such lists to recognize changes in the job market, encourage training and certification standards for new professions and guide people into fields short of workers.

The MLSS' latest list is good news for people who thought they had no place in the country's tight job market. For instance, the possibility of becoming a sign language translator could represent a new career path for students of popular foreign languages.

While developed economies like Japan and Canada include professional sign language translation in their education systems, only a few colleges in China, a country with 20 million hearing-impaired, provide sign language training.

The MLSS estimates that the country will need about 1,000 skilled foreign sign language translators to work at the 2008 Olympic Games.

"It's a good opportunity for English students like me. So many people are studying English these days that my job prospect looked dim. Learning sign language will increase my competitiveness," said Zhao Jing, an English major at Nanjing University.

Yi Cheng, a consultant at the Beijing-based Bailing Human Resources Consultation, said the list of new professions reflected the country's social and economic development and the increasing specialization of the job market.

For example, the appearance of expo designer on the list reflects the huge demand for such services in the country. The expo industry generates about 8 percent of the world's GDP.

The 2003 national employment statistics show that 85 percent of the expo designer positions in Beijing and Shanghai were vacant.

Only 1 per cent of the 1 million people who work in the expo industry at present are designers, which is not enough to meet the demands of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

The rising standard of living in China is reflected in the recognition of synthetic materials test engineers and home decoration quality inspectors as professionals. The demand for natural disaster information experts and inter-city rail transit route repairers has risen in line with the country's rapid industrialization and the urban construction boom.

source: China Daily