The charm of the iron rice bowl is not as good as it used to be. Not only has the number of applicants dropped by half in 10 years, but according to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Service, the number of central and local civil servants has dropped by 5,423 in two years. Even the number of resignations has increased from 1,994 in 108 to 3,094 in 2013. The number of resignations has increased by 55% in the past five years. Among them, the civil engineering grade has the highest resignation rate in recent years, and the number of resignations in the judicial administration grade is on the rise.
The audit report of the General Accounts of the Ministry of Audit pointed out that from 2012 to the end of 2014, the number of central and local civil servants was 365,503, 362,942 and 360,80 respectively, showing a year-by-year downward trend. The total number of civil servants at the end of 2014 was 5,423 compared with the end of 2012, including 3,359 fewer in the central government and 2,064 in local government. The situation of failing to fill the shortfall is becoming increasingly serious.
In addition, affected by factors such as the impact of the domestic trend of children and the educational development model of the younger generation, the number of applicants for the civil service examination dropped from 327,608 in 2014 to 166,057 in 2013, a drop of as much as 49.31%.
The Ministry of Examination and Selection has continued to promote the rational adjustment of the number of examination subjects, and the Examination Yuan and the Executive Yuan have also held meetings to discuss. However, from 2012 to 2014, the number of students who were under-enrolled in the College Entrance Examination was 265, 353 and 663 respectively, showing an increasing trend year by year. Among them, civil engineering subjects have been under-enrolled for three consecutive years. In 2014, there were still 5 subjects without admissions, and the actual number of candidates for 7 subjects was less than the required number.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of civil servant resignations increased from 1,994 in 2018 to 3,094 in 2013, and the resignation rate increased from 0.70% to 1.10%. Compared with 7.5% to 8.9% in the United Kingdom and 2.5% to 3% in the United States, although the resignation rate of civil servants is low, the number of resignations has shown an increasing trend, with an increase of 55% in the past five years.
Among them, the civil engineering grade has the highest resignation rate in recent years, and the number of resignations in the judicial and administrative grades is on the rise. In addition, the resignation rate of the younger generation is relatively high. The Shuangbei region is facing serious manpower load problems. In the long term, the resignation and transfer rate of public servants has remained high. This shows that the current talent retention incentives and career development mechanism have failed to effectively attract and retain talents, and have had an adverse impact on the organizational stability of public agencies.
In this regard, the Examination Yuan stated that it has tasked relevant ministries and commissions with the Executive Yuan to establish an inter-agency platform to discuss improvement measures in a timely manner. In addition, the Ministry of Civil Service and the Executive Yuan’s General Office of Personnel and Administration will conduct system integration to assist the personnel units of various agencies to regularly grasp and understand the resignation and turnover status of agency personnel in order to properly respond and discuss relevant human resources management measures.
