41 health workers sacked after flawed recruitment drive

Health officials in Ruzhou, Henan province, were recently penalized for their involvement in a recruitment scandal at a publicly funded disease control and prevention center, local authorities said on Saturday.

The center initiated a recruitment drive in 2022 and eventually hired 41 people after a lengthy process of exams, interviews and health checks that spanned almost two years, partly due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, they were recently sacked because of regulatory breaches in the recruitment process, even though they had been working at the center for several months.

The decision to hire the 41 applicants was made public on a local website for feedback in February, following a common practice in China to ensure transparency and fairness in recruitment for public positions.

However, complaints poured in between February and last month, triggering an investigation that revealed regulatory breaches in the recruitment campaign organized by the Ruzhou Talent Exchange Center, a subsidiary of the city's human resources and social security bureau, according to a statement issued by Ruzhou's health commission.

In response, disciplinary authorities in Ruzhou and higher-level authorities in Pingdingshan launched a joint investigation and discovered that the recruitment plan had not been approved by higher authorities, the commission said.

The recruitment advertisements also included unlawful thresholds, it added.

Consequently, the commission said the recruitment outcome was invalid, and organizations and officials involved had been subject to serious disciplinary actions and organizational measures.

The commission pledged to learn from the incident and ensure that future recruitment processes are transparent, fair, just and subject to public oversight. It thanked the media, internet users and the public for their attention.

A screenshot circulating online revealed that one recruitment advertisement specified applicants must be under 35 years old and hold junior college or higher degrees.

However, it also said that applicants who had participated in pandemic control work in Ruzhou could be up to 40 years old and subject to less stringent education requirements.

Suspicions of a black box operation arose following reports that 28 of the 41 recruits used to work for the center informally.

One post on the Sina Weibo micro-blog platform said: "When you see a job posting that seems to have a hidden agenda, there are definitely people pushing for it and benefiting from it. We need to look into this closely!"

The sudden change has left recruits frustrated, as they had eagerly awaited formal enrollment. It also raised concerns about transparency in hiring practices for public posts, which have long been prized for offering stable jobs and generous benefits.

A recruit surnamed Wang, who had no prior connections to the center, told China National Radio that she was verbally informed on June 17 by her superior that the recruitment was void, despite having worked at the center for four months unpaid, including a three-month probation period.

Wang said she had been asked to sign a "voluntary" resignation declaration. She said her colleagues, who had previous ties to the center, were also instructed to leave their positions last month.

"We were asked to leave without any written notifications, just verbally," she said. "And if we didn't leave, they said they would bring in people from outside to replace us in our jobs."