BEIJING — Highly skilled professionals were in increasingly short supply in China in the second quarter of this year, according to official statistics ranking the most in-demand jobs in the country.

Nearly half the 30 new professions on the list of the 100 most in-demand jobs for the second quarter were related to sectors such as software, manufacturing, and information technologies, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which compiled the quarterly ranking.

Instrument making was among the top 10 most desirable jobs in the second quarter, and there were growing shortages of smart manufacturing engineering technicians, communication engineering technicians, and automatic control engineering technicians, the rankings show.

Service sector jobs remained in high demand, with sales representative, waiter, security guard, cleaner, and marketing specialist topping the list.

The rankings are based on data collected from 102 public employment service agencies in the country.

China's surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5 percent in June, 0.7 percentage points lower than the same period last year, official data shows. A total of 6.98 million new urban jobs were created in the first half of 2021, achieving 63.5 percent of China's annual target.