公务员职业:看上去很美

Judging from his pile of train tickets, Xie Cheng must travel a lot. So it’s odd that the 24-year-old history major knows nothing about the local attractions or food in the cities he’s visited – Qingdao, Lanzhou, Changchun, Yichang, Changzhou, Shijiazhuang, to name a few.

从谢成（音译）手中厚厚的火车票票根来看，他一定去过好多地方。但奇怪的是，这名24岁的历史专业毕业生竟对自己所到城市的风光及美食一无所知，这些城市包括青岛、兰州、长春、宜昌、常州、石家庄等等，不一而足。

Xie is one of many young Chinese graduates who have been caught in the civil service mania of recent years, hoping that their toil in taking the exams will land them a stable career with a decent income and a respectful social status.

近年来，中国许多年轻的大学毕业生都投身“公务员热潮”之中，希望自己不辞辛苦地一次次参加国考，最终能换来一个收入可观、受人尊敬的“铁饭碗”。谢成就是其中的一员。

“I have taken the national entrance exam for the central government’s civil service three times, and about a dozen times for civil service jobs in other provinces and cities,” said Xie.

“我先后参加了三次国家公务员考试以及十几次各省市的地方公务员考试。” 谢成说。

For Xie, the civil service paints a promising future. “It would mean a change of fate,” said Xie. “By becoming a civil servant, an apartment, cars and a happy family would be within my reach.”

对于谢成来说，公务员描绘了大好的前途。他表示：“这可能意味着一次命运的转折。如果成为一名公务员，房子、车子及美满家庭将指日可待。”

In order to realize one’s dream, one has to be willing to fight for it. According to the State Administration of Civil Service, the national exam for civil servant admission to central government agencies hit a new record in 2017, with 109 positions receiving more than 1,000 applications each.

为实现梦想，必须为之拼搏。国家公务员局表示，2017年中央机关及其直属机构国家公务员考试创造了一个新纪录，109个招录职位的报名比例超过1000:1。

Liu Manping, an economist at a Beijing-based think tank, thinks the phenomenon reflects people’s sense of insecurity in a fluctuating market and economy.

北京某咨询研究机构的经济学家刘满平认为，“公务员热”现象反映出，由于市场环境与经济环境的波动，人们缺乏安全感。

“More fierce social competition tends to push people to play safe,” said Liu. “With high housing prices and the rising cost of medication, some of the welfare benefits extended to civil servants can cure these headaches.”

刘满平表示：“日益激烈的社会竞争，往往会促使人们寻求安稳。房价与医疗支出不断攀升，而公务员的福利待遇可以解决这些棘手难题。”

However, according to Zhu Lijia, from the Chinese Academy of Governance, there has been a trend of phasing out public servants’ privileges in medication and housing.

但来自国家行政学院的竹立家则表示，政府已有意逐步取消公务员在医疗及住房方面所享有的特权。

A report by China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security indicates that by 2017, 24 out of 31 provinces and municipalities reformed medication benefits for civil servants.

人力资源和社会保障部发布的一份报告显示，截止到2017年，全国31个省、直辖市、自治区中，已有24个地区实行了公务员医疗保险制度的改革。

“The inequality embodied in the traditional medication benefit has to be tackled,” said Zhu. “Social welfare systems must cover everyone indiscriminately.”

竹立家说：“过去公费医疗中所体现出的不公性必须解决，社会福利制度必须公平地覆盖所有人。”

As for Xie: Earlier this year he finally managed to become a quality inspector in a small city in Shanxi province. But his daily routine is far from the ideal picture he had in mind.

今年年初，谢成最终如愿以偿，成为山西一座小城市的质量检验员。但日常工作与他理想中的设想相差甚远。

“The workload is huge and we work late into the night on most days,” said Xie. “The salary just reaches the local average, so I’m a bit disillusioned. But at least I don’t need to worry about losing my job for a while.”

谢成说：“工作量很大，大多数时间我们都会加班到晚上。工资刚刚达到本地的平均水平，所以我有点儿理想幻灭的感觉。但至少在一段时间内，我不用担心自己会失业了。”