More promising career paths for civil servants needed

The authorities should be cautiously aware of an exodus of officials from the civil service. According to online job website zhaopin.com, just three weeks after the Spring Festival, more than 10,000 civil servants and other government officials had posted their resumes through its website seeking jobs. Indeed it is a complicated picture: On one hand, the fever among people to become civil servants seems to continue. Over the weekend, more than 100,000 people competed in the tests to be recruited as civil servants in Central China's Hubei province. On the other, the total number of candidates taking the national civil servant recruitment examination and the average number of applicants for a post were the lowest in five years. Also, the number of posts that had to be scrapped for lack of applicants increased.

The issue of civil servants seeking other jobs, however, demands rational thinking. First, there is nothing abnormal in people jumping jobs. Everybody has the right to choose or change his/her job or career, and cross-flow of talents enriches industries. Also, a society that respects individual choices will develop healthily.

Second, the subsiding "civil servant fever", even if it's true, is not a bad thing. After the global financial crisis, civil service jobs became the most popular career choice in China, and the competition for civil service posts became unprecedentedly intense.