Highlights

• China has introduced its first national occupational standards for rare earth smelters and materials production technicians.
• The standards are backed by Northern Rare Earth to formalize skill benchmarks for the sector.
• The objective is to build a systematized, highly skilled workforce to support China's goals of becoming the world's largest rare earth materials base and most advanced applications hub.
• This initiative highlights a widening talent and technical-capacity gap between China and Western nations, particularly the U.S., which lack equivalent standardized training pathways.

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China has taken a significant step toward formalizing—and professionalizing—its rare earth workforce. A newly announced pair of national occupational standards for rare earth smelters and rare earth materials production technicians marks the first time Beijing has created official skill benchmarks for the sector.

The move was spearheaded by Northern Rare Earth (Group) High-Tech Co., Ltd. (Northern Rare Earth), the largest rare earth producer in China and a cornerstone of the state-directed supply chain.

Background

On November 26, the final review meeting for China’s national occupational standard for “Rare Earth Smelters” and the preliminary review meeting (opens in a new tab) for the “Rare Earth Materials Production Technician” standard were held at the Baogang Hotel in Baotou.

The event was jointly organized by the Baotou Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and the Nonferrous Metals Industry Skills Appraisal and Guidance Center, with Northern Rare Earth hosting.

The meetings mark an important step in building China’s national vocational standard system for the rare earth industry—an effort intended tostrengthen national strategic-resource security and support thehigh-quality development of the rare earth sector.

According to officials, to implement Xi Jinping’s directives on strengthening Inner Mongolia’s rare earth capabilities and to support the construction of China’s “two major rare earth bases,” Northern Rare Earth began developing industry-wide skills standards in 2023, becoming the first to launch such a project. With cross-sector collaboration, the standards were drafted and completed.

Next, Baogang Group and Northern Rare Earth will promote the release, communication, and implementation of the new standards, further improving the system and cultivating a large, highly skilled workforce.

The establishment of national occupational standards is described as critical for training talent and advancing the high-quality development of the rare earth industry. Experts from China’s Employment Training Technical Instruction Center outlined the review criteria and evaluation methods.

During the meeting, panel experts conducted a line-by-line review of the two standards, raised questions, and received detailed responses from the drafting group. After extensive discussion, experts unanimously agreed that the standards were according to the Chinese accounting, well-structured, logically coherent, aligned with national norms, reflective of industry needs, and suitable for training, certification, and employment. The “Rare Earth Smelter” standard passed its final review; the “Rare Earth Materials Production Technician” standard passed its preliminary review.

Northern Rare Earth’s Human Resources Director Zhang Xiangyu noted that developing these standards is highly consequential for building an advanced, specialized talent pipeline. Northern Rare Earth, he said, leveraged its strong technical foundation to lead the effort and aims to accelerate the creation of a national high-skills training base.

Expert reviewer Xu Hui added that once approved, the smelting-industry standard will guide curriculum development, exam design, and workforce-skills upgrading.

Li Shaoqiang, Director of the Baotou Human Resources Bureau, stated that the new standards fill a national gap, establish clear criteria for training and evaluating rare-earth workers, and will strengthen China’s position as the world’s leading rare earth materials and applications hub.

For global markets, especially the United States, the signal is straightforward: China is not only dominant in rare earth mining and processing—it's now standardizing and scaling the talent base behind those capabilities. This is state-backed industrial policy extending directly into workforce engineering.

Some Notable Implications

The strategic implications are notable. First, China is filling what a recent piece via China Northern Rare Earth calls a “national skills gap”—a tacit acknowledgment that advanced processing and materials manufacturing require a deeper technical workforce than currently exists.

 Second, this aligns with Beijing’s plan to build the world’s largest rare-earth new materials base and the world’s most advanced rare-earth applications hub. Third, it suggests that China views talent development as a competitive lever in its global rare-earth dominance—something Western governments and companies have not yet matched. Rare Earth Exchanges has continuously reported on the criticality of this issue from an American and Western perspective.

Northern Rare Earth’s leadership emphasized that the company aims to establish a state-level high-skills training center, providing China with a systematic mechanism to accelerate capability-building. For the U.S., which lacks equivalent standardized pathways for rare-earth smelting or advanced materials processing, the development highlights a widening talent and technical-capacity gap that Rare Earth Exchanges raises as an issue for the West to contemplate.

Disclaimer:

This news report is based on information originating from a Chinese state-owned company. All claims should be independently verified before being treated as factual.

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