Beijing, March 3 (Zhongxin.com) -- On February 31 this year, more than 2 provinces held written examinations for the recruitment of civil servants in 25, and the results of the written examinations have been announced in various places recently.
Sorting out the recruitment announcements of provincial examinations in many places shows that some provinces have relaxed the registration age for some positions or some groups of people to 40 years old, and the topic of "breaking the 35-year-old boundary" has attracted public attention.
Data map: On January 1, outside the examination center of the No. 8 Middle School in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, a candidate was reviewing with materials. Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Lixin
In some areas, the provincial examination age has been relaxed to 40 years old
Judging from the 2023 civil service recruitment announcements in various places, at present, Henan, Guizhou, Hubei, Jiangxi and other provinces have mentioned that the age of recruitment targets can be relaxed to 40 years old.
Henan's 2023 unified examination announcement on the recruitment of civil servants mentioned that applicants should be over 18 years old and under 35 years old (born between January 1987 and January 1), except for positions with special age requirements, for 2005 master's and doctoral students (non-working personnel), it will be relaxed to under 1 years old (born after January 2023).
Other provinces such as Sichuan, Chongqing and Hubei that have relaxed the age limit to 40 also require candidates to be non-working fresh master's and doctoral students.
In this regard, Xiang Jing, associate researcher of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the relaxation of the age limit for master's and doctoral students is the result of the continuous improvement of human capital.
"The democratization of higher education has delayed the average age at which the younger generation enters the workforce. Relax the age limit to let education, employment, education re-selection, employment conversion, etc. promote each other, giving people more opportunities to choose. Xiang Jing said.
At the same time, some regions have also relaxed the age limit on the conditions of individual grassroots positions or professional and technical positions.
The recruitment announcement in Guizhou states that the age of village (community) party organization secretary, deputy secretary, village (community) director or deputy director who applies for the position of "outstanding village (community) cadre" can be relaxed to under the age of 40 (born on or after January 1982, 1).
Guangxi candidates must be under the age of 40 (born after February 1982, 2) to apply for the position of deputy director or third- or fourth-level investigator.
Jiangxi mentioned that the age of applicants for targeted recruitment of staff positions in township (field, street) institutions can be relaxed to 40 years old (born after January 1982, 1).
In addition to relaxing the age limit, the position of targeted recruitment of staff of township (field, street) public institutions also requires applicants to be in the county (city, district) township (field, street) public institution (including the establishment personnel of the county directly stationed in townships and streets, excluding schools and hospitals) for more than 5 consecutive years (refers to the staff who have been continuously on the job from January 2018, 1 to January 11, 2023), and the annual assessment in the past 1 years has been qualified or above.
Data map: The picture shows candidates who took the written test of the 2 civil service recruitment examination of Fujian Province on February 25, Fuzhou, on their way to a test center. Photo by Zhang Bin
What does the relaxation of age restrictions mean for public examination competition?
Why is 35 a recruitment threshold? What will be the impact of relaxing to 40?
"The trend of relaxing the age limit shows that age will no longer be a key option for recruiting talent in the future, and the selection and employment will be more flexible." Liu Youzhen, an expert at Huatu Education Research Institute, said in this analysis.
In fact, the relaxation of the age limit for civil servants is not new. Observing the recruitment announcements of the national examination and provincial examination over the years, it has been mentioned that the age requirements will be relaxed for non-working fresh master's and doctoral students, and some positions in difficult and remote areas.
In 2014, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the "Opinions on Doing a Good Job in the Examination and Recruitment of Grassroots Civil Servants in Difficult and Remote Areas", according to which all localities can take the following six measures to lower the entry threshold individually or in combination according to the actual situation of difficult and remote areas:
(1) Appropriately reduce the academic requirements for recruitment positions, and the minimum can be high school or technical secondary school;
(2) Relax the restrictions on recruiting majors, and township organs may not limit majors;
(3) Appropriately adjust the age requirements for applying for positions;
(4) There is no restriction on the number of years of work and experience;
(5) Reasonably determine the proportion of examinations, and reduce the proportion of examinations where the number of applicants is small;
(6) Separate passing scores for written examinations.
Liu Youzhen believes that relaxing the age limit will not have much impact on the competition for the public examination and the recruitment of fresh graduates, "Most of the positions that fresh graduates can apply for are front-line grassroots posts, and the positions that relax the age limit require rich work experience, which are two different paths for talent selection."
In response to the "35-year-old threshold" phenomenon in the current job market, Xiang Jing said that many age-limiting phenomena in the job market are actually the result of the double squeeze of supply and demand in the labor market in the past.
"Age restrictions are an important way for many companies to do rapid screening. By relaxing the age limit, the government has sent a positive signal to the job market that people can be selected and talented. Xiang Jing said. (End)