Job seekers attend a job fair in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Oct. 25, 2020. A job fair, which provided nearly 8,000 job vacancies, was held here on Sunday and attracted thousands of graduates. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)

A one-week job fairs initiated by the Chinese government for 2021 college graduates started on Monday to help students secure jobs amid an arduous employment environment, and more fresh graduates are tending to favor civil service jobs over the private sector.

The event, launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE), will run until Saturday, organizing career fairs and other employment and education activities at universities across China for senior students who are ready to jump into the job market.

China has a complicated and arduous employment situation with more than 9 million students set to leave universities in 2021, a record high. 

The MOE said it will support all universities to promote a more comprehensive and higher-quality job-finding experience. At a school recruitment campaign jointly held by the MOE and 12 social recruitment agencies, more than 14 million job openings have been provided and more than 37 million graduates have submitted their resumes.

In Central China's Hubei Province, Wuhan University has organized three rounds of career fairs for 2021 graduates, and students are showing a tendency to seek more stability in employment in the wake of the epidemic, the director of the employment service center of the university, surnamed Yan, told the Global Times on Monday. 

"The number of students applying for civil service jobs, as well as posts in public institutions and the military, has seen an increase this year," he said, noting that there are plenty of job opportunities for fresh graduates, but they are facing a hard choice in selecting the right one. 

Other universities are also finding a trend where students tend to choose jobs within the government and public institutions. 

A tutor responsible for graduate employment at the China University of Mining and Technology-Beijing, surnamed Lu, told the Global Times that the popularity of foreign companies continues to decline among fresh graduates. Also, the number of students taking the civil service exams is apparently growing, based on the school's annual reports of graduate employment.

The "instability" of private companies, especially multinationals, has deterred graduates, who tended to settle in stable jobs in the past two years due to the effect of the epidemic, he said. 

"Private companies have been reducing hiring due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, governments are providing more posts for fresh graduates. The transition is quite clear," said Lu. 

According to a report from Zhilian Zhaopin, a Chinese career development platform, joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned companies reduced hiring by 23 percent and 38 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of 2021. 

Jin Jin, a 2019 graduate who is working in an education consulting company in Shanghai, said that she has encouraged many 2021 graduates from her Alma Mater to seek jobs that are "less risky" and "more stable" after she saw a few rounds of lay-offs in her company and other companies in the industry during and after the epidemic. 

The number of people registered for this year's civil service exams exceeded 1.5 million in April, an increase of more than 110,000 year on year, according to a report from Gongkaotong, a Chinese civil service exam training company.

A graduate who took the exam for the local discipline inspection commission in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, told the Global Times that the position she applied for had an applicant ratio of 1,200:1.