Harder than ever to find prized civil service job in China

Wang Kui, a fourth-year law student at the South China University of Technology, compares her pursuit of a much-coveted civil service job to speed dating.

"The ones you have a feeling for, you have little chance with, and those you feel you might match well are not necessarily those you are fond of," she said.

Her view encapsulates the despair felt by many college students as they size up their chances of landing a government job. Despite positions in the civil service remaining as highly sought after as ever, with thousands often vying for a single opening, a growing number of vacancies are proving hard to fill.

The application process began on October 15 for the national civil servant qualification exams, with the number applying hitting a record high of 1.52 million, with a year-on-year increase of 20,000, according to official statistics. This despite the fact that planned recruitment by central government agencies and their regional branches is down by 1,000 vacancies to about 19,000, the first cut in three years.

At the same time, 100 openings received no applications, according to Offcn, an institution specialising in civil servant exams coaching.

Mao Xuan, a senior manager at Offcn, said that those 100 jobs were either posts needing special skills or licences which few people possessed or were vacancies in off-beat government agencies or in remote areas. Mao said positions at the police department or railway authority in Harbin in Heilongjiang were often shunned because they could be demanding.