The employment crisis among young Chinese remains the primary driver behind the surge in civil service exam applicants.
“About 80 percent of those taking the civil service exam do so because they struggle to find satisfying jobs that match their qualifications. Of the remaining 20 percent, roughly half have no clear career plan and simply follow the crowd, while the other half are pushed by their parents to take this exam,” said Fan.
Dong's students shared similar feedback: "nearly 90 percent of them indicated finding a job is extremely difficult nowadays".
Meanwhile, many students said the jobs they are able to secure do not meet their expectations, as wages are often low to support themselves and workplace pressure remains high.
As a result, the students’ desire for stability has been growing steadily and many are now pursuing jobs in the government, according to Dong.
Chilly job market, heated exams
Xu usually arrives at the library at 9 am in the last month before the exam, spending two hours taking a mock test, and often taking more than two hours to review the results of a whole set of papers. (Photo courtesy: Xu Xinyu)
“In the civil service, it’s certainly an ‘iron rice bowl’, at least you won’t get fired easily,” said Xu.
Xu Xinyu, a 22-year-old student majoring in Portuguese in Beijing, successfully passed the interview stage of a post under the ministry in April.
“I have actually made this choice based on my desire to find employment,” she said.
“For many majors, even after completing a postgraduate degree, employment requirements may change. For example, medical major undergraduates could find excellent job opportunities a few years ago, but now not only are the academic requirements getting higher, the pay is actually getting worse,” said Xu.
“Their pay and benefits may be good, but one policy change or business decision could shut down the whole department overnight, and then everyone in the team loses their job. The economy hasn’t been great these past few years, what if you were to be made redundant,” she said.
“Some people think that if jobs out there are not as stable, maybe facing the risk of sudden unemployment, which would really make them feel bad,” Fan said. “That’s why they would rather go for something stable in the first place.”
Besides, Fan added that the mid-career crisis really exists, as many fear unemployment after 35, especially jobs in fast-changing fields like programmer. “In some industries, age brings value. In others, it does not.”
“China still faces a difficult youth labor market,” said Wu.“In that setting, many students see the civil service as offering more certainty, clearer returns, and lower downside risk than a master’s degree.”
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on this year, the surveyed urban unemployment rate for the 16 to 24 age group, excluding students, rose by 0.8 percentage points to 16.9 percent in March, reaching a four-month high.
In March, the surveyed urban unemployment rate nationwide was 5.4 percent. The average surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, unchanged from the same period last year.
In addition, the surveyed urban unemployment rate for the 25 to 29 age group, excluding students, stood at 7.7 percent, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous month and the highest level since December 2023.
The unemployment rate for the 30 to 59 age group was 4.3 percent, up 0.1 percentage points from the previous month.
However, this excludes-students methodology was only adopted after a revision to China’s youth unemployment calculation in 2023, when the unemployment rate for the 16 to 24 age group rose for six consecutive months, increasing from 17.3 percent in January to a record high of 21.3 percent in June that year.
This revision resulted in a significant decrease in the jobless rate among the young people by applying different statistical criteria.
The NBS announced in August in 2023 would suspend the release of the urban youth jobless rate by age group, saying that “with the improvement of the educational level of Chinese residents, young people spend more time studying at school. In the statistics of labor force surveys, the definition of the age range of young people also requires further research.”
In January 2024, two adjustments to its age-specific unemployment statistics were announced, including publishing the jobless rate for the 16 to 24 age group excluding students and adding a 25 to 29 age group unemployment rate, also excluding students.
The post-pandemic labour market worsened the challenge. Fan said that as the COVID-19 epidemic came to an end a few years ago, the number of jobseekers rebounded, flooding back into the labour market.
“When the pandemic hit, many people lost their jobs. Those people, after managing to find work again, often realize that even their former boss may have been looking for opportunities too. Everyone is searching for jobs,” said Fan.
Jobs in the private sector disappeared just as easily, the labour market found itself in a predicament characterised by an oversupply of labour, falling starting salaries and difficulties in finding employment.
The private sector has long been the dominant source of urban employment in China, as it contributes over 80 percent of urban employment and over 90 percent of the total number of enterprises, according to official data.
China has more than 56 million private companies, which are the largest source of campus recruitment positions each year and the primary channel for hiring graduates, according to Chinese media reports.
However, in recent years, many private enterprises have slowed their business expansion, due to policy issues and a chanllenging business environment.
Private investment, a key indicator of the vitality and growth momentum of the private sector, saw average annual growth rates of 5 percent, 3.7 percent, and 7.7 percent for national, private, and state-owned investment, respectively, over the eight-year period from 2015 to 2023, according to state-owned media report.
The year-to-date cumulative growth rate for private fixed-asset investment is -2.20 percent as of March 2026, according to a data platform macromicro.
“In the past, high-achieving students might have avoided the civil service, fearing it would limit their potential,” said Dong. “But over the last couple of years, with fewer holidays, a sharp drop in wages, and mounting pressure regarding housing and living costs, people have come to feel that rather than working themselves in a big city, they’d be better off returning home to sit the civil service exams.”
“The post-pandemic economy did not create this preference from nothing, but it intensified it. Growth has become less even, private firms in some sectors have hired more cautiously, and many families have become more conservative after several years of uncertainty,” said Wu.
“In such an environment, state employment offers what private firms often cannot promise: stable income, a clearer career ladder, social status, and lower perceived layoff risk. This is why the iron rice bowl has regained appeal even if public-sector pay is not always higher,” he said.
This sustained youth unemployment pressure, even after methodological adjustments, has prompted Chinese young people to see the civil service exam as a lower-risk pathway to stability.
The accelerated depreciation of academic qualifications has also contributed to this trend.
In 2010, China had 1.54 million postgraduate students and 384,000 graduates. By 2025, those numbers had risen to 4.3 million students and 1.167 million graduates.
In Beijing, the number of master’s and doctoral graduates exceeded that of undergraduates for the first time as early as 2023.
According to Chinese media reports, the projected number of postgraduate graduates has exceeded that of undergraduates for three consecutive years since 2020, with the gap widening from 4,213 to 19,082.
“A higher degree once meant a good job. Today, it is just a stepping stone,” Fan said.
“Many students now believe that even if they obtain a master’s degree, its value is declining so rapidly that it may not guarantee a good position in a private company. In that case, they directly pursue the more stable path of the civil service exam,” Fan said.
“A master’s degree has not become useless, but its signaling power has weakened,” said Wu.
“Higher education has expanded sharply, and degree inflation means a postgraduate credential no longer guarantees a major wage premium or a better first job. At the same time, tuition, living costs, and the opportunity cost of delaying work have become more visible,” Wu said.
“So many young people now ask a practical question: if the labor market is weak, why spend two or three more years accumulating uncertainty?” said Wu.
The craze for postgraduate entrance exams, which served as a strategy to delay labor market entry and a long-term investment in enhancing competitiveness, appears to have peaked after more than a decade of continuous growth.“What is ending is not necessarily the value of postgraduate study, but the period when “Kaoyan” was the default route for upward mobility for a very large share of graduates,” said Wu.
“The number of registrants for the 2026 exam fell to 3.43 million and has now declined for several consecutive years, so the fever has clearly cooled. But demand for master’s degrees will remain strong in elite universities, in highly technical fields, and in occupations where credentials still matter a great deal,” he said.
Separately, Dong mentioned that the craze for civil service exams in China exhibits distinct regional variations. Although her organisation has many branches in China, its presence in the south is minimal and has only gradually begun to expand there over the past two years.
She pointed out that in the north part of China, such as Shandong, Henan, Hebei provinces, sitting civil service exams has always been a traditional view.
“It has been popular for the past decades, and over the last two years, the competition has become increasingly fierce,” said Dong. “Many parents feel it would be kind of a shame if their children did not get into the public sector.”
This has led to a phenomenon called “exam-chasing”, with candidates from provinces such as Shandong, migrating across the country like migratory birds, chasing any position that does not restrict applicants by household registration.
Huatu Education, one of China’s leading tutoring providers, once published an article in 2024, explaining that Shandong is the birthplace of Confucian culture and places great emphasis on local governance, which has resulted in civil service positions enjoying high social status in the province.
Besides, Shandong’s state-owned sector is relatively well-developed, the growth of private enterprises lags behind that of southern regions, leading some graduates to prefer pursuing a career in the civil service, said Huatu.“As long as the exam has no residency restrictions, they’re prepared to go anywhere, even if it’s in a different province. I have many students who are driven by this psychological obsession to secure a position,” said Dong.
Meanwhile, in southern cities such as Zhejiang province, the desire to sit civil service exams has risen significantly, with many previously dismissing the prospect of a career within the public sector. However, in the last couple of years, this surge in interest has also emerged as a risk-averse choice following a reversal in economic expectations, according to Dong.