China holds provincial civil service exams, 3.7 million apply to take tests

Provincial civil service examinations were held in 24 provincial- level regions on Saturday in which millions of wannabe officials competed for tens of thousands of positions, The Beijing News reported on Sunday.

According to statistics posted on chinagwy. org, a website focusing on the examinations, the number of people who applied to take the exams this year has jumped to about 3.78 million, half a million more than in 2011. The number of actual exam- takers has not been announced.

In the 24 regions, Central China’s Hunan Province offered the most positions this year with about 10,000. East China’s Shandong Province had the most applicants, receiving nearly 356,000, The Beijing News reported.

As in previous years, competition was fierce. On average, there were 31.6 applicants for every position nationwide. The most intense overall competition was in Yunnan Province, where there were 72 times more applicants than available posts.

Some particularly popular positions, such as those with commissions of development and reform and local tax bureaus, saw even more intense competition. There were eight local government departments which received more than 1,000 applicants for one position. For example, the Jiangbei district Human Resources Management Bureau in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province was bombarded with 1,746 resumes for one job.

On the other hand there were also some positions that no jobseeker wanted to win. This year, assistant judge positions received few applications. For example, there were no applicants to the court in Tianlin, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.