Several thousand Chinese citizens still apply to be civil servants every year, despite the relatively low salary. (Photo : Reuters)
More than 132,000 of the applicants who applied to take the 2016 national civil service exam on Tuesday qualified for the exam, the most in a single day, with the total number of applicants this year surpassing last year's numbers.
According to Zhonggong Education, an institute that records the number of applicants, over 459,600 people have applied to take the exam by Tuesday, the sixth day of the application window. Almost 103,000 of those people applied on Monday.
This year, there are 27,817 civil service positions being offered by the central government departments and subsidiaries.
As of Tuesday, the most in-demand job was a position offered by the China Employment Training Technical Instruction Center in Beijing, with 1,430 applicants, according to the institute.
The second most in-demand position is one offered by the regional earthquake bureau in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with 768 applicants.
In contrast, there are 876 open positions that have not had a single applicant as of Tuesday. These include railway police officer in Shanghai and Xi'an.
On Saturday, the application period will close. Those who successfully apply must then pass the 2016 national civil service exam, which begins on Nov. 29, in order to qualify for a job interview in March.
In 2013, there was a record 1.52 million applicants who qualified for the national civil service exam. This number decreased in 2014 for the first time in four years to 1.41 million applicants.
"Based on experience from previous years, the number of applicants could sharply increase as the application window closes, especially during the last three days of application," the Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security said on its website.
The ministry also said that some posts are more popular because they do not have strict requirements when it comes to education and work backgrounds.
