Are civil servants really that good?

There is a paradox in the profession of civil servant.

According to common sense, when the economy is not good or most people have bad expectations for the future economy, more people will take the civil service exam and competition will intensify.

But at the same time, the income of civil servants comes entirely from fiscal revenue.

When there are problems with the country’s economic development, it is difficult for civil servants to see significant improvements in their salaries.

What is particularly "cute" about many civil servants now is that on the one hand, they believe that the country's economy may slow down in the future, so they feel that civil servants are a safe haven, but on the other hand, they rely on their experience in the past few years. , I believe that the salary of civil servants will steadily increase by tens of thousands every year, and I feel that civil servants will definitely become more and more like Hong Kong.

I have to say, people who have this idea are really cute.

If the salary of civil servants will steadily increase in the future, there is only one possibility, which is to significantly reduce the size of civil servants and reduce the denominator to increase the average salary of everyone.

But in this way, only a very small number of people can be civil servants. And if you think that the economy will get worse and worse in the future, so you become a civil servant for stability, then since you all know that the economy is getting worse and worse, it is a joke to expect civil servants to become more and more prosperous.

The civil service industry has not been the best since ancient times. Even now, in reality, there are still a large number of jobs that are much better than civil servants, but these jobs either have academic qualifications, or have connections and family background as thresholds, so they are out of reach for most people.

What is good about civil servants can only be said to be that compared to the abilities of ordinary people, the remuneration and security are better than most jobs. For example, in the grassroots unit where my father works, a newly recruited ordinary civil servant can earn only 70,000 to 80,000 yuan a year, which is about 5,000 to 6,000 yuan per month.

If you insist on converting the canteen meals and annual benefits into money, it will only be 10,000 to 20,000 yuan a year. Other so-called gray benefits and hidden income are really gone. Would you say that nowadays, a job with a monthly salary of 5,000 to 6,000 yuan is considered a good job?

But in counties and towns, it is indeed difficult to find a job with a stable monthly salary of 5,000 to 6,000 yuan. In comparison, civil servants are pretty good.

However, many years ago, when I was chatting with my parents, I accidentally asked them such a question.

I said, you started working in the 1980s, so it has been almost 40 years now. What good jobs have you had in these 40 years? They thought for a while and then named at least seven or eight types of jobs. There would be a wave of changes in "good jobs" almost every 5 to 10 years. Maybe in the next 20 years, civil servants will not become a bad job, but in the face of a future that no one can predict, no one dares to say that civil servants will still be as good a job as they are today.

Of course, if there are still people who insist on using the popularity of applications to prove the popularity of civil servants, then I can only say that there is no need to raise this issue. You are right.

According to the future development trend of higher education, undergraduate and postgraduate enrollment will continue to expand, but civil servant positions will not increase at the same rate. As more and more people are eligible to apply, the intensity of the civil service examination may increase. However, this does not mean that civil service is still the best job. It is just that the application threshold set by civil servants is low, which will make the competition more intense. .

Finally, my own family and my girlfriend’s family are both civil servant families, but in the same memories of the two of us, we had a difficult time in each other’s families when we were young. My dad once asked for a loan to pay for medical treatment for my grandparents, and when she was a child, her family was so embarrassed that they couldn't afford mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Of course I can’t say that all civil servants are like this, but in an era of drastic changes, there is never a stable and good job. My parents are also prepared for the possible decrease in salary in the future. I also plan to do something that can make money after retirement.

In this sense, if you insist that the future economy will get worse and worse, so you want to take the civil service examination, then please say "I am taking the civil service examination just for stability, not for the benefits." "High" idea - otherwise, if you can continue to increase fiscal revenue and employee benefits in an era of economic downturn, then it would be too humiliating to not be a leader of the National Development and Reform Commission or the Ministry of Finance.

PS: Make a little addition.

Some people in the comments disagreed with the statement "The civil servant industry has never been the best from ancient times to the present." They even cited the treatment of officials in the Song Dynasty as evidence.

However, if you have studied a little history, you should know that today's civil servants were almost all so-called "officials" in ancient times. Whether officials are well treated has nothing to do with officials. On the contrary, in many eras, the children of subordinate officials were not even qualified to participate in the imperial examination.

As for whether ordinary officials are well treated, first check whether you are qualified. Since the Song Dynasty, the average number of Jinshi admitted to the imperial examination each year ranges from a few dozen to more than a hundred.

If calculated based on the population of about 80 million in the Northern Song Dynasty, compared with today's population ratio, the number of Jinshi and the number of people with the same background as Jinshi who can be admitted each year is only about 1,000, which is equivalent to one year of undergraduate study at Tsinghua University 1/4 of the enrollment.

What I dare to say is that if you are really among the top 1,000 in the country in the college entrance examination, there will definitely be better jobs than civil servants in your professional choices.

There is no need to argue about why students from Qingbei are vying to become civil servants - first of all, most students from Qingbei go to selective positions, and they are selective positions with greater development potential; secondly, it is not All students in Qingbei think civil servants are a good job. You will know this if you talk to them.

A person who thinks that civil servants are the best jobs and always uses "civil servants are the ones who set the rules and cannot treat themselves badly" as an excuse can only say that he has either never been exposed to it or is not qualified to touch it. A better job than a civil servant, or you can use some reasons you want to believe to strengthen your understanding that "civil servants are the best".

But then again, since you think civil servants are the best jobs, and the threshold for civil servants is so low (even now, civil servants in remote areas can take the college entrance examination, and in ordinary places, those with a bachelor's degree or above ), then can’t you just take the exam directly? Once you pass the exam, you are directly superior to others. Why bother here to give pointers about the job of civil servants?

It’s just that in my opinion, today’s civil service examinations are very popular not entirely because of how good the job of civil servants is, but because at the national level, we must lower the threshold for civil servant recruitment. , to provide ordinary people with a job opportunity, which is also an important measure to stabilize society.