China’s youth compete for stable gov’t jobs in unstable economic times

Candidates for the Chinese civil service exam wait outside an examination venue in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province in 2009. That year, more than one million applicants vied for 15,000 civil service job vacancies [File: Shepherd Zhou/EPA]

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.