A good result on China’s annual national civil service exam is a requirement for any Chinese candidate who wants to be considered for the tens of thousands of vacant civil service jobs that the government seeks to fill every year.
Many of the vacant positions are reserved for recent Chinese graduates.
When 22-year-old recent graduate Du Xin sat down for the exam in December last year at a test centre in the city of Shijiazhuang in China’s Hebei province, she had been studying vigorously for six months.
Some applicants even hire tutors to prepare them for the exam.
Candidates are tested broadly on their general knowledge and analytical skills while in more recent years they have also been tested on their grasp of “Xi thought” – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ideology and vision for China.
Despite her months of preparation, Du knew that the odds that her test result would bring her closer to a government job were slim.
As she began the exam, so, too, did millions of other Chinese youths across hundreds of Chinese cities.
“The competition is fierce,” Du told Al Jazeera.
That year the chance of securing a civil service position was 70 to one.
A candidate makes last-minute preparations to sit for the Chinese civil service examinations, which nationwide, millions of candidates sit to qualify for thousands of job vacancies in the government, in Hefei, east China’s Anhui province in 2011 [File: AFP]
Therefore, Du was surprised and thrilled when she learned that she did well on the exam and subsequently landed a job as an organiser at the local office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shijiazhuang.
This year, the competition looked to be even more fierce as the number of candidates sitting down for the exam at the end of November surpassed three million for the first time.
The number of vacant government positions has not kept up, lowering the odds of securing a job like Du’s from 70 to 1 to 77 to 1, according to the state-run Global Times.
Du is not surprised by the high number of applicants.
“I think a lot of young people in China really want a stable job right now,” she said.
Candidates prepare to take China’s national civil service exam in a university in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, in 2013 [File: AFP]
Job security is an ‘iron rice bowl’
The appeal of stable employment was what drew Du to the civil service exam last year at a time of economic turmoil in China.
“I felt a bit lost after I finished my graduate studies, I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she told Al Jazeera. “But I knew I wanted a job where I could feel secure and have free time, and that made me interested in government work.”
Although employment in China’s civil service rarely pays as well as comparable employment in the Chinese private sector, there are other benefits. Civil servants usually have access to better medical insurance, a preferential pension plan, consistent bonus pay-outs and secure lifetime employment.
The security that comes with a public position has given rise to the nickname, “iron rice bowl”.
Iron rice bowls are coveted by some traditional Chinese parents for their children – not just for stability but because some see obtaining such jobs as a recognition of excellence by the state.
Candidates queueing to take the national examination for admissions to the civil service in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province in 2021 [File: AFP]
An important aspect of life as a civil servant for Du is the working hours.
“I work from 9am to 5pm, and I don’t have to work on weekends,” Du said.
Many of Du’s friends in the private sector work the 996 system – 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week.
“Compared to them, I have a lot more free time to enjoy my hobbies,” she said.
Yang Jiang was also not surprised by the record number of applicants for China’s civil service exam this year.
Jiang is a scholar of China’s economic policies and a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
The number of applicants has been growing quickly in recent years, and according to Jiang, one reason is the equally high number of Chinese graduates entering the job market.
In 2023 alone, almost 11.6 million Chinese finished their studies, the highest number ever.
But the overarching reason for the high number of civil service exam applicants is the Chinese economy, Jiang told Al Jazeera.
“The economic situation is uncertain in China,” she said.
Candidates arrive for China’s national civil service exam in a university in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, in 2013 [File: AFP]
The Chinese economy has been struggling to reach the growth rates of earlier years, the housing market is in the deepest slump in decades and foreign direct investment struck a deficit in the July-September period of 2023 for the first time recorded.
For Chinese graduates, circumstances look particularly grim: youth unemployment hit a record high of 21.3 percent in June before the authorities stopped publishing the numbers.
“The private sector in particular has seen a lot of layoffs in the economic downturn,” Jiang explained.
“That has naturally made more Chinese graduates look towards the public sector for the sort of job security that is currently missing in the private sector,” she said.
‘They can’t make us disappear’
Like Du, 23-year-old Chris Liao from Guangdong province in southern China graduated last year with a master’s degree in public administration. He also signed up for the civil service exam.
“I didn’t make it past the written exam,” he told Al Jazeera.
Afterwards, Liao was unable to find a job within his field of study, forcing him to work as a cook for a while before he moved back with his parents outside Guangzhou, the largest metropolis in Guangdong.
He is now among the millions of unemployed young people in China.
“I feel like life got really difficult when COVID hit and ever since it hasn’t stopped getting difficult,” he explained.
Liao believes that the government’s COVID-19 strategy is the cause of many of the economic problems plaguing China today.
“So it is the government’s responsibility to do more to make the situation better,” he said.
According to observers, the large number of unemployed youth in China’s major cities is a significant cause for concern for the party-state.
One Communist organisation in Liao’s Guangzhou even presented a plan in March about sending unemployed youths to the countryside to foster rural development.
Such a plan hearkens back to Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s during which time millions of urban youths were sent to the countryside in a period of political and social upheaval that caused the deaths of at least two million people.
In January, President Xi also spoke about Chinese youths “revitalising” the countryside.
Liao does not believe that such plans are realistic in modern times, however.
“They can’t make us disappear into the countryside,” he said.
“There are too many of us, and we are growing in number.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
