A Shanghai resident uses the mobile app "Metro Daduhui," developed by Alibaba's payment platform Alipay, to pay for subway fares in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province. The app, which uses the world's first remote QR scanning technology, enables passengers in Shanghai, Ningbo and Zhejiang capital Hangzhou to ride the metro in any of the three cities, a sign of further regional connectivity in China's economic powerhouse Yangtze River Delta. Photo: IC

Unfamiliar with customer service patterns, callers often mistook Zhang Jiayuan's voice when he started to work for Alipay as a contact staff member three years ago.    

With a computer in his small bedroom, the 34-year-old hemophiliac managed his own work to earn an average hourly pay of up to 25 yuan ($3.6).    

"Bills, refund orders, train tickets... Where there's a customer with a problem, I'm here to help," Zhang said. A big part of his job is diffusing the anger of irritated individuals.    

Zhang gradually developed various conversation techniques to address both their irritation and urgent problems, while also gaining a sense of fulfillment in the process.    

Earning money without leaving his home surprised Zhang's parents at first.    

"I'm grateful to live in this cloud era and have this new job," said Zhang, who was diagnosed with hemophilia when he was in primary school and used to shut himself away from the world, depressed  and with an injured left leg.    

Yet in 2015, a job ad in an online chat group helped drag him out of his despair. He signed up with some 100 others, completing various training programs and evaluations, and was hired as a cloud customer service clerk for Alipay.    

According to Zhang, over 20,000 people are currently doing the same job, scattered over some 350 cities and counties across the country. Some of whom suffer from rare diseases, just like him, while others were previously held back by physical disabilities.    

With over 40 previously unheard of occupations unveiled on its platform, Alipay has created nearly 7 million jobs, demonstrating the magical effect the digital economy has on the labor market.    

He Jianhua, a research fellow and former deputy head of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the digital economy has spurred the gig economy and provided more flexibility in the labor market.    

A much more efficient collaborative revolution is almost upon us, he added.    

Bus route planners, garbage sorters, AI data annotators and other fancy jobs are just around the corner.    

More importantly, over two-thirds of these jobs are part-time gigs, and about one-third can be completed online, according to an Alipay report, which also noted that half of the new workers live in small cities and counties.    

These gigs are not only for young people. The 180,000 planters and forest rangers who planted trees for numerous online users of the green initiative Ant Forest were all herders and farmers, of whom more than half were over the age of 40.    

After finishing his rehabilitation exercises, Zhang sat back down before his computer and resumed his work.    

"I don't like to be labeled as disadvantaged," he said. "In this era, every job deserves some applause."