Chinese provincial governments are expanding recruitment of civil servants this year, as authorities look to stabilise employment and absorb a record number of university graduates.
Mainland China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions are to recruit more than 190,000 new staff in 2023, an increase of more than 16 per cent year on year, according to data compiled by leading vocational training providers Offcn Education Tech and Huatu Education Group.
Four jurisdictions – Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and Guangxi – will expand intakes by over 50 per cent, according to the statistics.
Only Shanghai, Jilin, Hunan and Shaanxi and Tibet are reducing recruitment numbers.
China’s central Government is also adding to its bureaucracy, with the State Administration of Civil Service announcing in October that a record number of 37,000 civil servants would be added across Departments and Agencies this year, up 18.7 per cent on 2022.
Some 25,000 vacancies, or 67.4 per cent of new positions, are to be available exclusively for fresh graduates, the highest share in recent years.
A total of 11.58 million college students will graduate in 2023, an increase of 820,000 compared to last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education.
Head of the Department of Population and Employment Statistics at the National Bureau of Statistics, Wang Pingping said the Government should do more to stabilise employment as the domestic economy was still recovering.
In December, China’s surveyed unemployment rate for those aged 16 to 24 was 16.7 per cent, compared with the 5.5 per cent for the general urban population.
“The surveyed unemployment rate of the youth labour force is still high and the number of college graduates will reach 11.58 million in 2023, so efforts are needed to promote the smooth employment of young people,” Wang said.
Hong Kong, 16 February 2023
