Businesses change course amid COVID-19

Fiercer competition

By last month, the number of representatives on Victor Zhao's sales team at the Beijing branch of insurance company AIA had risen from 33 to 49, while about 15,000 agents were working for the company, compared with 10,000 at the end of last year.

"Most of the new staff members come from industries hard-hit by the pandemic, such as tourism and overseas study consultation businesses," said Zhao, who joined AIA's Beijing branch in 1997, when China become the world's second-largest life insurance market. Before this, he was a contract manager for a European multinational company.

One of the new employees at the branch is Ryan Yuan, born in the 1990s, who joined in March. After obtaining a postgraduate degree in the United Kingdom in business management, he worked for an overseas studies consultation company, mainly in the UK and the United States. This sector has been severely affected by the pandemic.

Yuan said: "I expect it will need at least two years to recover. On the one hand, most overseas schools and colleges have stopped enrollment for the autumn semester. On the other, Chinese parents are not likely to risk their children's lives if the pandemic is not totally over."

However, unlike when Zhao joined AIA, competition in the insurance sector is now much fiercer.