CRI听力:Expert: Civil Servants Applicants Need Cool Heads

Only one out of over 6,000 applicants will be recruited as an office functionary in a provincial surveying bureau under China's National Bureau of Statistics, making the position the most competitive one.

However, there are still hundreds of positions that attract no applicants. They are mainly scattered in rural, less-developed and remote border regions.

Zhou Shaojie, a senior researcher from the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University has his analysis.

"The position at the National Bureau of Statistics is at provincial level and does not require a very high education background, qualification or working experience. So the recruitment standard is comparatively lower. That is why I believe it is so popular. But the situation is just occasional since the demand for job vacancies differs each year."

The most-welcomed vacancies in the previous two years came from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and National Energy Administration respectively.

Zhou adds some other government institutions have set stricter conditions, which leads to some positions for which no one has applied.

"Once enrolled, the new employees have to sign labor contracts of no less than five years, agree to work overtime and frequently go on business trips. Some institutions say they do not even provide accommodations. So applicants should be mentally prepared for these difficulties."

However, some applicants say they are hesitant to face up these harsh conditions.

"Many people take the exam in the hope of getting a stable occupation. As far as they are concerned, being a civil servant means high salary and social status, fairly good welfare, and most importantly, no unemployment risks."

Another feature of the recruitment is that nearly 80 percent of them do not require the applicants to have any working experience.

However, Zhou Shaojie says civil servants do need more social practice.

"We need to improve the civil servant recruiting system to make it more favorable to those with grassroots working experience. For example, some university students volunteered to administer villages after they finish school. They should have the priority to be recruited as civil servants. Because as policy-makers, civil servants need to assume social responsibilities based on these practices."

Zhou adds that basic living conditions should be ensured for those dedicated to working at less-developed regions so as to make the jobs more attractive.

For CRI, I am Wei Tong.