China’s Young Elite Clamber for Government Jobs. Some Come to Regret It.

In Beijing and cities across China, up to 2.6 million won Job applicants, including graduates from the country’s top universities, will report to test centers in early January to face extremely long and competitive odds for 37,100 entry-level government jobs.

The national exam is an annual rite of passage for young Chinese, some of whom spend thousands of dollars on exam preparation classes and spend hours cramming. It comes at a difficult time. It was supposed to be given in early December, but was canceled at the last minute. The government cites the Covid-19 key, but the exam is postpone days after protests in more than a dozen cities against China’s strict pandemic restrictions.

Employment in China’s vast civil service has long been seen as a prestigious launchpad for a career. These include entry-level roles typical in any economy, such as secretary in city government, and some roles unique to China, such as supporting the control bureaucracy. wide browsing of the country.

But these days, jobs are also unnecessarily coveted, because fresh graduates are especially hard-pressed to find jobs at private companies.

Nearly one-fifth of people between the ages of 16 and 24 in China are unemployed. Alibaba, Tencent and other tech companies have laid off workers. Economic growth has been hit by a sharp drop in real estate and small businesses suffering from Covid restrictions, leaving much of the country paralyzed for weeks or months. The “no Covid” policy has been scrapped, but the economy is not expected to recover quickly.

“It’s just that they don’t have many opportunities in the private sector,” said Alfred Wu, a professor at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

The competition for public service positions is so fierce that people often refer to them with a Chinese proverb: “a thousand troops cross the bridge in one game”.

Exams are rigorous. Candidates must answer approximately 130 multiple-choice questions covering topics such as mathematics, data analysis, science, and economics. They were asked to write five essays of 200 to 1,000 words on social issues and government policy. Scoring increases your chances of getting a job, even though getting hired means enduring a barrage of interviews, background checks, and other assessments.

Then there’s the reality of Acts work. Some say their days are ruled by rigid hierarchies and involve monotonous chores. Others, while saying they love their jobs, complain that their responsibilities often extend beyond normal working hours. Their role in enforcing China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid over the past three years has been a sore point.

Amy Liu, who has been a secretary at the Beijing city government for the past six years, said she enjoys her job, learns a lot from it and finds her days satisfying.

But in recent years, she has been embroiled in the “zero Covid” campaign. Like everyone in her department, she is required to volunteer at virus testing sites once a week when there are multiple infections. She was instructed to stand guard and keep the crowd in line.

“This makes me very uncomfortable,” Ms. Liu said.

In addition to other mandatory duties unrelated to her job, such as lessons on Communist Party history, ideological lessons organized by the propaganda department, and law tutorials. law and discipline from the anti-corruption department. These themes have become more important across China since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

Working in public institutions has a rich history in modern China. Government jobs were once prized – previous generations called them “iron rice bowls” for their stability. They offer security and normal business hours. But after China’s economy began to open up, many young people chose to pursue the wealth and opportunities available in the private sector instead.

That trend has reversed under Xi. A stronger state grip on parts of the economy such as technology has made those private sector jobs less attractive and harder to find, and has placed new burdens on those in the workforce. work in the Civil Service.

“The culture of China’s entire local government has changed, from encouraging the innovation economy and developing tourism to achieving the goal of political security and pleasing supervisors,” he said. Xiang Biao, professor of social anthropology at Oxford University who specializes in Chinese society, said. .

These jobs are especially difficult during the pandemic. China’s rigid policies have created a series of rules that civil servants must enforce, and that leaves frontline workers with “punching holes” and “pressure relief valves,” the Daily said. reporter, a newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, said in an article. April article in one blockade in Shanghai lasted two months.

Mr. Xi said China needed reduce the burden for lower-level government employees by reducing “form for the sake of formality and bureaucracy,” noting how government agencies in some cities force employees to complete unresolved paperwork. solve real problems. But it’s unclear whether the “zero Covid” easing will change the nature of start-ups, at least in ways that make work more appealing.

It is a difficult time for a young person to start a career in China. “They know that the opportunities created by China’s rapid growth no longer belong to this generation,” said Mr. Wu, a China expert in Singapore. That frustration of many young people, he said, was reflected in the wave of protests that rocked China in November.

“Of course, the protests are definitely Covid related, but they also show their desperate side,” he added.

Despite their dissatisfaction with their jobs, some young civil servants say they feel trapped because there is no guarantee that they will find something better in the private sector. In addition, they said they often feel pressured by parents who value stable work and revel in the status of children working for the government.

“My parents thought it was good to be a civil servant,” Ms. Liu said. “They thought I should never leave.”

Katherine Shi has a job that at first glance sounds appealing to many young graduates: She watches television for a living. Ms. Shi is a government censor who searches for vulgar, politically sensitive and other prohibited topics on TV and movies.

Work has become difficult, she said. There were days when she was asked to moderate 100 hours of video and make sure nothing was left out. Even when watching the video at twice the speed, Ms. Shi said she still couldn’t handle the workload.

She said, she often feels conflicted at work because there are many things she doesn’t find offensive but are within the censorship rules. She was ordered to censor an increasingly long list of content, such as videos of LGBTQ people, tattoos or so-called “lie flat“values, a counter-cultural approach that has become popular in China for its lack of ambition and the desire to lead an easy, uncomplicated life. In a crime film, censors need to make sure that Crime is always punished.

“Culture should be very liberal, and you should allow manifestations of the so-called negative energies and the dark side of society because they really exist,” Ms. Shi said. She says she feels that some in the government have turned a blind eye to how the world really is.

“I am very upset about this,” she said, adding that she was considering quitting her job to study abroad.