Why some jobs are hotterthan others

Boredom, indeed, is an inherent feature of every overgrown bureaucracy. When it was reported over the weekend that by Oct 24, as many as 1.35 million people had qualified for the 2010 national examination for recruitment of civil servants, and that up to 4,080 people had applied for posts with just one vacancy, one could not help ask: What on earth is going on in society? What is the economic logic behind such fierce competition for certain jobs?

It is job security, most people would answer. Government jobs are the most recession-proof. Government agencies never fire an employee in this country, as the general practice goes, unless he/she is accused of a crime.

Parents want their children to join the civil service to ensure they have a guaranteed career path and less money is spent - from housing to marriage expenses - in shaping their future.

After a friend's daughter graduated from one of the nation's leading engineering colleges in Beijing last year, he called me over the phone, seeking help to get the young woman "any State-sector job".

"Are you crazy?" I said. "Do you want your daughter to spend the rest of her life in a little office writing and reading reports that no one else in the country reads, and marry a petty bureaucrat? She is still young. Why don't you let her take up some challenges and learn new things?"

"Well," he replied, "we just want to do what other parents are doing."

Of course, we can't blame the parents. When every parent is doing or wants to do the same thing, it shows not only the weaknesses of human nature, but also the wrong structure of the system.

I don't agree with the contention that the popularity of the national civil servant exam reflects government officials' rising reputation, as Beijing Youth Daily claimed in its editorial yesterday. Compared with jobs in other sectors such as education, medical care and journalism, there is little evidence to show that civil service has made rapid progress in ethical behavior. Why then does the civil service, rather the junior-level jobs in government offices, attract so many applicants?

I don't agree with some people's argument either that civil service jobs are "especially rewarding" because we often see some officials on trial for taking bribes or embezzling funds. To be fair, far from all civil servants get the chance to destroy themselves in corruption. Most of them do not hold decision-making posts or have the authority to provide or deny a service.

Many junior civil servants do not earn, either in cash or other benefits, more than their peers in the private sector.

So the main reason why so many people make a rush for the civil service has to be job security. And the global economic crisis, along with the over-supply of college graduates in the last few years, has intensified that rush.

The economic crisis, however, is precisely the time when market economy sectors need new blood, especially creative young people who can prepare for their recovery and expansion. The fact is that market entities can hardly compete with the government when it comes to job security. The very idea of risk scares many young people and their parents away from the private sector.

The government cannot, and should not, try to generate all the jobs that the economic crisis has killed, for it will only exacerbate the crisis by widening the gap between the lucky few and the unlucky many.

Rather, it should devise policies and related incentives (particularly easier credit) for private sector firms and the self-employed to ensure they have better growth opportunities and recruit more young people. Unlike the government, they don't have to provide lifetime employment. They just have to come up with more innovative services and products and pay their workers fairly and in time.

After all, nothing, not even lifetime employment, can tap young people's creativity better than the incentives offered by market economy.

younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/27/2009 page9)