Following the closing date for students to apply for next year's civil service jobs on October 28, Monday's Workers' Daily reported on the increasing competition for these posts, talking to academics on the reasons behind it.

Shu Fang, associate professor of Renmin University of China's School of Public Administration, said the civil service examination has become even more competitive than university entrance and postgraduate admission examinations.

According to the Ministry of Personnel's website, 383,008 students will be vying for 8,662 posts in 97 central government departments. Including applications for local government positions the number is almost 1 million, compared to 0.54 million the previous year.

The number of applications has risen every year since the national civil service examination was introduced in 1994, despite the fact that salaries are higher in joint ventures.

Hu Tingsheng, director of the Vocational Training and Guiding Center for Students at South China Normal University, said students sit the exam either because they are well-prepared or because they see it as good practice for the future. He believed that the actual number of competitors is lower than what appears.

The Workers' Daily said the average monthly salary of civil servants in Beijing and Shanghai is around 3,000 yuan (US$371), much higher than other public institutions, and reports that the government would continue to increase civil service wages may have encouraged more applications.

Besides stability, less work pressure and desirable social status, civil service positions also offer housing subsidies and medical allowances, according to Dr. Hu Wei with the Institute of Administration Research under the Renmin University.

One worker at a Shanghai foreign-owned company, Liu, said she dreamt of becoming a civil servant.

"People often think working in a foreign company is a splendid job," she said, "For example, the salary is high; the working environment is excellent and so on. However, they never think about that it is very common for us to work for more than 12 or 13 hours a day. We often feel extremely tired."

In the past 11 years, more than 800, 000 people successfully passed the examination and became civil servants. Growth in applicants in the last three years has been especially fast.

(China.org.cn by Wang Ke, November 3, 2005)