Meituan deliverymen take a break along a road in Beijing on Tuesday. Shares of the Beijing-based food delivery giant ended up 10.41 percent in the Hong Kong market on Tuesday, making it the country's third-largest internet firm by market capitalization, following Alibaba and Tencent. Photo: cnsphoto

Employment is the most important issue for the Chinese government this year, as it is the first of the tasks for stability and security in six key areas. And analysts said the takeout industry has a huge role to play in keeping employment stable.

China's government work report released last week said China aims to create 9 million new urban jobs. Meituan, an online food delivery platform, alone has added 950,000 jobs since the COVID-19 outbreak in January.

"A food delivery platform employs about a tenth of China's annual employment target. The rapidly developing takeout platform plays an important role in employment," said Zhao Ping of the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade on Friday at a press conference on food delivery.

In 2019, the revenue of China's total food and beverage takeout sector reached 600 billion yuan ($83.91 billion), an increase of more than 30 percent year-on-year, according to the latest data. 

The domestic traditional catering industry experienced a sharp decline after the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020. During the 7-day Spring Festival holiday in January and early February, the catering industry suffered a loss of 500 billion yuan. Food takeout has become the only incremental business in the industry and source of income amid lockdowns.

"The takeaway industry has a huge role to play in securing jobs. Riders in the food delivery industry are migrant workers. From the macro point of view, it is an upgrade from the secondary industry to the tertiary industry," Zhou Xuezhi, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.

But an analyst said other industries besides the catering industry should also become driving forces to create jobs.

"Social employment depends on the overall pull of each industry. If the food delivery industry alone could solve the employment problem, then it wouldn't be a problem," Sun Wenhua, director of the China Agriculture Chamber of Commerce, told the Global Times on Friday.