The application period for China's national public servant exam in 2024 started on Sunday. With the recruitment quota expanding for multiple years in a row, next year is set to reach a new high of 39,600 vacancies available at central agencies and their directly affiliated institutions.  

Candidates can apply for the exam between Sunday and October 24. The written tests for the general subjects are scheduled to be held simultaneously in municipalities, provincial capitals, autonomous region capitals and some larger cities across the nation on November 26.

According to the recruitment announcement released by the National Civil Service Administration, preference for recruiting fresh college graduates will continue.

According to the requirements and deployment of the Communist Party China Central Committee and the State Council regarding the employment of college graduates, 26,000 positions will be designated for fresh college graduates to promote their employment.

The administration will further strengthen the construction of grassroots civil servant teams with nearly 27,000 posts available at directly affiliated institutions at the county or district level and below. Application conditions for positions in remote and hardship areas have been adjusted appropriately in terms of educational background, major and work experience based on actual conditions.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 positions have been designated for college graduates who have served in the military for over five years or longer and personnel recruitment for grassroots project, in a bid to encourage and direct talent flow to the frontlines and actively promote national defense careers.

Over the past three years, the recruitment numbers for national public servants have been continuously increasing from 25,700 in 2021 to 37,100 in 2023, according to thepaper.cn.

This expansion in public servant recruitment is the result of increasing demand for public servants as well as adjustments in government responsibilities, which needs more civil servants, Xiong Bingqi, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Meanwhile, it also aims to alleviate the current problem of comparatively low employment among fresh college graduates, Xiong said, explaining why the recruitment policy stresses preferential treatment for fresh college graduates.

The number of fresh college graduates in China has been continuously increasing over the past few years, breaking the 10 million mark for the first time in 2022 and reaching 11.58 million in 2023. It is expected fresh college graduates will reach a record high of 11.87 million in 2024, according to media reports.

In 2023, the Chinese youth unemployment rate rose from 19.6 percent in March to 21.3 percent in June for the 16-24 age demographic, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The NBS has suspended the release of unemployment data by age since July.