Candidates line up to take the civil service exam in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, November 28, 2021. (Source: AFP)

Fierce competition

Last December, Du Xin, a 22-year-old fresh graduate, took the civil service exam at a testing center in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, China. She studied hard for six months.

Some candidates even hire tutors to prepare for the exam.

Candidates are tested on general knowledge and analytical skills. In recent years, candidates have also been tested on their grasp of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ideology and vision for China.

Despite months of preparation, Du knew her chances of passing the exam and landing a government job were slim. Last year's civil service exam was taken by millions of other young Chinese across the world's second-largest economy.

“The competition was fierce, with a ratio of up to 1:70. I was lucky to do well on the exam and was offered a job at the local office in Shijiazhuang ,” Du stressed.

This year, the competition is even fiercer. According to the National Civil Service Administration of China, as of November 26, more than 2.61 million people registered and more than 2.25 million people eventually took the civil service exam held in 237 cities across the country.

People's Daily also reported that government data shows that this year the number of jobs at the central government level is 39,600 and the competition ratio is about 1:77.

Du was not surprised by the high number of applicants. “I think a lot of young people in China really want to have a stable job,” she said.

Civil servants - the safest place

The lure of a stable job was what drew Du to take the civil service exam last year.

“I felt a little lost after finishing graduate school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I knew I wanted a secure, stable job, and that got me interested in government work,” she said.

A recent analysis by a team of scholars at Stanford University found that about 64 percent of Chinese college students surveyed expressed a strong preference for jobs in the state sector. Because of their stability and flexible working hours, jobs in this sector are known as the “iron rice bowl.”

“I work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and I don't have to work on weekends,” Du said.

Many of Du's friends in the private sector work on the 996 system – 9am to 9pm, six days a week. "Compared to them, I have more free time to enjoy my hobbies," she said.

Yang Jiang, a senior research fellow at the Danish Institute of International Studies, is also not surprised by the record number of applicants for China's civil service exam this year.

The number of applicants has increased rapidly in recent years, and so has the number of Chinese graduates entering the job market, according to Jiang. In 2023 alone, nearly 11.6 million Chinese completed their studies – the highest number ever.

This makes the private sector in China, especially for tech companies, less attractive, while the public system offers job security and less age discrimination.

Even on social networks, young Chinese people call civil service the "end of the universe" profession, the safest place in today's volatile economic environment.

"But the overarching reason for the high number of civil service applicants is China's economy," Jiang asserted.

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has slowed in recent years from the blistering pace of previous decades. As China’s economy began to open up in the late 1970s, many young people chose to pursue higher salaries and opportunities for wealth in the private sector.

Meanwhile, the housing market is in its deepest recession in decades and foreign direct investment is in deficit for the first time in the third quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, youth unemployment hit a record high of 21.3% in June, before the government stopped releasing the figures.

“The private sector in particular saw a lot of layoffs during the recession,” Ms Jiang explains. “ That naturally led many graduates to look to the public sector for security – something the private sector doesn’t have.”

Returning to the countryside and "reviving" the countryside

Like Du, Chris Liao, 23, from Guangdong province in southern China, graduated with a master's degree in public administration last year. He also registered for the civil service exam.

“I failed the written exam,” he said sadly. After that, Liao was unable to find a job in his field of study, forcing him to work as a chef for a while before moving with his parents to the outskirts of Guangzhou, the largest city in Guangdong.

He is now among the millions of unemployed young people in China. “I feel life has become really difficult since the Covid-19 pandemic started,” he said .

The large number of unemployed youth in China's major cities is a cause for concern for the Chinese economy, observers say.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also spoke about how young Chinese are “reviving” the countryside. President Xi said that young people should “accept hardship”.

For some, living in a small town may not be worse than living in a big city. Take Janice Wang, 28, who returned to her hometown of Anji County, Zhejiang, in 2020.

She worked as a teacher in the city after graduating from university in 2016. But then, she was attracted by the increasingly invested countryside, lower living costs and slower pace of life, so she decided to return to her hometown to run a guesthouse.

Janice Wang does not have to pay rent or buy a house because her family owns it. She points out the advantages of good infrastructure and fresh air. In addition, running a guesthouse is not easy but it is more free and happy.