China’s employment market is tough, with job opportunities hard to come by, leading to a rising trend in the popularity of the national civil service exam. However, the official recruitment plan for 2027 reveals a decrease in the number of positions available, with only 35,700 people set to be recruited, a reduction of about 2,400 from the previous year, marking the second consecutive year of cuts. Among these, the recruitment plan for fresh graduates from universities accounts for 69% of the total recruitment, nearly reaching seven-tenths.
On October 13, the Chinese Communist Party’s National Civil Service Bureau issued an announcement stating that the 2027 national civil service exam will recruit 35,700 people. Candidates can register on the dedicated website from October 14 to 24, with the written examination for public subjects scheduled to take place on November 29.
Public data shows that from 2019 to 2025, the recruitment scale for the national civil service exam has been on the rise, with the number of recruits increasing from 14,500 in 2019 to 39,700 in 2025. Since 2022, the recruitment has been consistently over 30,000 each year.
The recruitment scale for the 2026 national civil service exam began to decline, with a planned recruitment of 38,100 people, a decrease of about 4.03% from 2025. In 2027, this further dropped to 35,700 people, a decrease of about 6.3% from the previous year, marking two consecutive years of reductions.
Contrasting with the shrinking recruitment scale is the continuous increase in the number of exam applicants in recent years.
Public data shows that the number of candidates passing the qualification review for the national civil service exam was nearly 2.6 million in 2023, surpassing 3 million for the first time in 2024, increasing to 3.416 million in 2025, and further rising to 3.718 million in 2026, setting a historical record that is 2.3 times higher than in 2021.
The registration process for the 2027 national civil service exam has just begun, and it remains to be seen whether the final number of applicants and those passing the qualification review will set a new record.
Looking at the recruitment structure, the 2027 national civil service exam has approximately 24,600 recruitment plans for fresh graduates, accounting for 69% of the total recruitment, an increase of about 1 percentage point from the previous year. In addition, around 26,900 recruitment plans are arranged for county-level and below direct institutions, representing about 75.3% of the total recruitment.
In recent years, with China’s economy continuing to stagnate and employment pressure increasing, while the scale of college graduates keeps expanding, university students are facing the dilemma of “graduating into unemployment” year after year. Against the backdrop of intensifying job competition, civil service positions have become an important choice for many job seekers due to the relatively stable nature of the work.
Data released by the Chinese Communist Party’s National Bureau of Statistics shows that in August 2026, the urban unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds excluding students stood at 18.9%, up by 1 percentage point from July, hitting a high not seen since August 2025. However, the official data released by the Chinese Communist Party has long been questioned by outsiders, suggesting that the actual situation may be even more severe than the official figures indicate.
At the same time, in 2026, the scale of regular graduates from Chinese ordinary universities reached 12.7 million, an increase of 480,000 from 2025, setting another historical record.