China has recognised esports as an official profession, according to the The Esports Observer.
China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (CMHRSS) announced that 'esports professional' and 'esports operator' would qualify as official careers on January 25th.
The CMHRSS identifies an esports operator as someone that works on organising esport tournaments and produces content from this.
For esports professional, the ministry chronicles this as someone who either takes part in esports events, trains with pro players or competes in professional esport tournaments.
Account boost
It’s worth noting that the CMHRSS attributes “account boosting” to the profession of esports. The term means to boost the rank of another for monetary compensation, however the Chinese meaning can be to do with a pro player competing on another pro players account.
Alongside esports, 13 other new professions were officially recognised including drone pilot, big data engineer and AI engineer.