The "iron rice bowl" system of lifelong employment in the civil service is set to end this year, as authorities consider a new recruitment policy.

The civil service departments will draft new management rules including ones for resignation and dismissal provisions this year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on its website yesterday.

A draft of the guidelines was presented last year and pilot programs have been running in six cities, it said.

A pilot system for recruiting some civil servants was launched in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, last year.

"The new appointment system is designed to transform the civil service into an incentive-oriented, performance-driven career option," Deputy Minister Yang Shiqiu said on Tuesday.

"Incentives and punishments will be introduced to improve the performance of civil servants, and a six-exit system will be introduced in the future," he said.

The "six exits" will include retirement, transferring out, resignation, firing and discontinued contract, he said.

A total of 90,000 civil servants were recruited last year, 86 percent of whom were graduates. In 1992, just 30 percent of new recruits were graduates, the ministry said.

More than 700,000 people sat the national civil servants exam in November to compete for 13,500 government jobs.

More people consider jobs in the civil service as easy option.

"I would like to trade my current job, even though it pays better, for a government job because I want more personal space," Beijinger Xiao Liu, who sat the entrance exam last year, said.

In the past, government positions guaranteed workers cradle-to-grave employment and basic welfare. But the central government is keen to introduce new rules to ensure public sector employees actually work for a living.

(China Daily March 5, 2009)