In April 2024, the news that "Henan will no longer retain section-level institutions" rushed to the hot search and caused widespread discussion. This change stems from the reshaping reform of public institutions in Henan launched at the end of 2021, and in principle, public institutions with less than 16 staff at the section level and establishment will no longer be retained. According to the latest information released by the Henan Provincial Development and Reform Commission in April this year, in addition to schools and hospitals, public institutions in the province have been reduced by 60.7%, 137 public institutions have been abolished, and the establishment of institutions has been reduced by 46.9%.
Henan's reforms are not unique. As early as 2018, Heilongjiang Province issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Institutional Reform of Public Institutions in Heilongjiang Province", and as of the end of October 2019, Heilongjiang Province has streamlined public institutions by 51% and the establishment of public institutions by 29%.
These adjustments have broken the public's impression of the "iron rice bowl" of the career editor. In the past, the biggest advantage of the establishment position was "stability", and in addition, the advantages of high social security contribution ratio and good retirement benefits have also become attractive. Especially in the turbulent era of uncertainty and frequent layoffs, establishment positions are particularly precious.
This also makes the examination the choice of many graduates and professionals, and the competition is very fierce every year. Taking the recruitment of public institutions in Guangdong as an example, a total of 203,781 people will register for the unified examination in 2024, with an average competition ratio of 1:16 and a competition ratio of 1:451 for the hottest positions. Wang Jian, chief research and counseling expert of Zhonggong Education, found in the survey that with the increasing number of candidates in recent years, students no longer choose units and positions, and the most consulted question is "which position is easy to be admitted".
In the past, it was thought that it was impossible for a person with a staff to be unemployed. However, with the gradual advancement of the state's reform of public institutions, seemingly distant situations such as downsizing and layoffs within the system are now occurring, which inevitably triggers public discussion: Is the establishment still an "iron rice bowl"? Will the career editor be abolished in the future? To that end, we've put together 6 related questions.
It's all called "compilation", but what's the difference between compilation?
In China, there are three main categories of establishment: administrative establishment, public service establishment, and undertaking establishment. Although they are all establishments, in fact, there are very big differences between these types of establishments.
The administrative establishment mainly refers to the formal personnel of the state administrative organs (i.e., the State Council, local people's governments at all levels, the functional departments of the State Council, and the functional management bodies of local people's governments, etc.), that is, civil servants. Such institutions are financed by the state, and employee salaries and benefits are paid by the state, and are governed and guaranteed by the Civil Servants Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Civil Servants Law).
The second category refers to the section on public service that refers to the section on public affairs managed by reference to civil servants, which is similar to the administrative section and is also governed by the Civil Servants Law and is funded by the state treasury. The main units participating in public affairs are the Meteorological Bureau, the National Bureau of Statistics, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, etc., and in addition to the different establishments, the treatment, promotion, and welfare of the public service personnel are not much different from those of civil servants.
The rest of the public institutions are fundamentally different from these two categories, and they are often institutions set up by the state with a certain public welfare nature, but they do not belong to government agencies.
According to the mode of state financial support, these institutions are divided into full-funded institutions, short-funded institutions, and self-supporting institutions. Fully funded units generally refer to units with no income or unstable income, such as schools, scientific research units, libraries, etc., and the required funds are allocated by the state budget; The state and the unit will bear a part of the funds of the shortfall appropriation unit, such as hospitals, some scenic spots, etc.; Self-supporting units, such as design institutes and hotels, are actually similar to enterprises, in that the state does not allocate funds, and the units are responsible for their own profits and losses.
In terms of stability and overall treatment and welfare, the administrative editor and the public service editor are better than the career editor, and they are almost not affected by the current wave of "restructuring" and "de-editing". In the business sector, the overall protection of the fully funded units is higher than that of the latter two, and the stability and treatment of the shortfall allocation and self-supporting units depend on the development of the units.
Admitted to the career editor, but the establishment does not belong to me?
In mid-April this year, an announcement issued by the Education Bureau of Xiang'an District, Xiamen City, pointed out that in the recent recruitment of key teachers, the number of eligible applicants did not reach the standard ratio, and positions in many subject areas needed to be adjusted. Taking the recruitment of backbone high school biology, politics, and history teachers as an example, the original plan was to recruit 2 people, but due to the zero number of qualified teachers, all these recruitment plans were cancelled.
Why is there a significant drop in the number of applicants? The main reason is that the teacher positions recruited in Xiang'an District do not provide establishment, and only the participation system is adopted, that is, the recruitment of teachers is managed with reference to the employment system of public institutions. Although its salary and benefits, social insurance, occupational annuity, housing provident fund, housing subsidy, etc., are the same as those of the staff, from the results, the candidates are not interested in such supernumerary recruitment.
In Wang Jian's view, the establishment is the most attractive condition for public institutions to recruit, and most people are aiming for this "stability", especially for the position of primary and secondary school teachers.
However, at present, the overall reform direction of domestic public institutions is to control and reduce the establishment and reduce the financial pressure, so a new recruitment method has been created between the balance of supply and demand - the filing system, which is different from the original examination and approval system. In the past, under the background of the approval system, the one-to-one correspondence between posts and personnel was implemented, and the real-name system was strictly managed, while the filing system implemented the self-management corresponding to the standard quota and the vague number of personnel.
Wang Jian explained that the essence of the filing system is that "the establishment is not on the post", that is, the employees themselves are not established, and the establishment is in the post, and once they are transferred from this post, they will lose the establishment of the post. Although the establishment of the record-filing system belongs to the post and not to the individual.
The advantage of the record-filing system is that it can more effectively control the total number of establishments, that is, the provinces and municipalities can fundamentally control the number of establishments of each unit, and at the same time, they can retain the attributes of public institutions under the premise of tightening the establishment, and give the right to recruit to the units themselves, and the units will hire and adjust personnel according to their own needs. It can be said that the record-filing system is a way for public institutions to gradually withdraw their establishment.
The use of the record-filing system is common in universities and hospitals. Unlike in the past, the recruitment of personnel within the establishment required the approval of the National Health Commission and the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the recruitment of the filing system only requires public hospitals to recruit personnel through the filing system, and submit the list to the Health Commission for the record, and the Health Commission allocates corresponding financial funds according to the number of people on record. Again, this so-called establishment does not belong entirely to the registered doctor, once he leaves the hospital, the doctor loses the establishment, and the hospital can recruit new people for this establishment position again.
In this case, public institutions have more flexible personnel appointment and dismissal powers, and have more say in terms of assessment objectives, personnel policies, and job transfers, and no longer need to apply to the higher levels for approval. Once the unit no longer needs a record-based position, it may also be withdrawn from the post and leave.
Does having an establishment mean stability?
For a long time, the career editor has always been considered a stable guarantee, but since 2009, when the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the document "Public Institutions Will Fully Implement the Employment System", even employees who are in the establishment need to sign employment contracts.
According to the Regulations on the Personnel Management of Public Institutions, the term of employment contracts signed by employees of public institutions is mostly one year, three years, and five years, and only employees who are less than 10 years away from the statutory retirement age and have worked in the unit for 10 consecutive years can directly sign until retirement - this means that, from a legal point of view, there is no stability in public institutions that can work until retirement.
However, due to the differences in the level of economic development in different regions, the implementation of the reduction of the establishment is also different. Basically, the pace of reform in the economically developed areas in the east is faster than that in the central and western regions. In addition, the state of local finances will also affect the strength of reforms. Wang Jian said in an interview, "Some provinces in the northeast and central regions are more radical in terms of establishment reform, and the core is directly related to local financial pressure, which cannot support so many financial support personnel." ”
As a result, even if the establishment of a business of the same nature is established in different regions, the stability will vary from region to region. Taking primary and secondary schools as an example, in popular schools in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, there are often multiple teachers competing for a position. Recently, Shanghai and Beijing have successively exposed the news that "teachers in the editor will not be renewed", which has also refreshed the public's cognition: Is it necessary for teachers to start to be eliminated at the end?
Wang Lin, a teacher in Beijing, encountered similar trouble some time ago. Wang Lin, a teacher with more than 10 years of teaching experience, passed the assessment during the three-year contract period, and she never imagined that she would one day be notified by the school to "not renew the contract".
When signing the contract, Wang Lin actually noticed the non-renewal of the contract listed in the contract, such as failing to pass the assessment, the unit may assign the teacher to other positions; If the teacher is not satisfied with the new position and still fails the assessment, the employer may choose not to renew the contract. But in Wang Lin's view, passing the assessment is not a difficult thing. The school adopts a point system, teachers can get extra points by publishing papers, being class teachers, attending open classes, etc., and finally there will be a total score ranking, except for the top 20% is excellent, the rest of the teachers as long as there is no teacher moral problem, they are basically qualified. As a result, almost all teachers, including Wang Lin, have not thought about whether to renew their contracts when they expire.
However, in a market environment where supply exceeds demand, the employment system gives the school a lot of power to directly decide whether teachers stay or stay. In the end, the school did not renew the contract with Wang Lin on the grounds that "he is not suitable to be a class teacher and his ability is not comprehensive enough".
Who has the final say on whether they can stay or not?
The essence of the reform of the employment system in public institutions is to shift from the employment of personnel by the state to the employment of personnel by units, that is, units can decide on their own to recruit and manage employees, and no longer completely rely on the approval of higher-level departments. To a certain extent, this is a more flexible way of employing people.
At the same time, the power of self-management of public institutions has also increased.
Chen Zhe, a junior high school teacher in Shanghai, said that as a fresh graduate, he can only sign a one-year contract with the school, and as far as he knows, this situation is very common in Shanghai's middle schools.
So, what exactly determines the retention of teachers? In this regard, Wang Lin and Chen Zhe both mentioned "relationship". Since the decision of whether to renew the appointment is more directly determined by the employer, the evaluation is not a completely quantitative indicator, which makes the evaluation of teachers full of uncertainty.
Chen Zhe said that in his middle school, routine assessments, such as class evaluations, seem objective, but the principal can decide the assessment results based on personal preferences, and teachers who are close to the principal are likely to get better results in the assessment.
"Whether or not to renew the appointment depends on the principal's impression and personal preferences. Sometimes, even if a teacher is doing well, they may be at risk of not being rehired if the principal doesn't like it. It is very important to choose a principal. Chen Zhe said.
Wang Jian observed that the situation of non-renewal of contracts in primary and secondary schools and non-replenishment of vacancies is mainly due to the rapid decline in the birth rate and the reduction in demand for teachers, which will spread from kindergartens to colleges and universities, and in the case of oversupply of teachers, schools will naturally raise the threshold for screening, and what kind of measurement criteria are used for this threshold, which is directly related to the actual needs of the school.
If I am not re-employed, who will protect my rights and interests?
For teachers, if they are not rehired, the biggest problem they face is that they may lose their "allocation" and need to be re-examined. In the area where Chen Zhe and Wang Lin are located, after not being rehired, the establishment of teachers on the staff will only be retained for one year. This means that for most teachers, if they can find a school in the same district within a year, the establishment can be retained, otherwise they will have to retake the exam.
Since employment contracts are governed by the Regulations on the Personnel Administration of Public Institutions rather than the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Labor Law"), employees of public institutions often face difficulties when seeking protection of their rights and interests.
The Labor Law stipulates that if an employer fails to provide economic compensation to the employee in accordance with the provisions after terminating the labor contract, it is an act of infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of the employee and shall pay compensation. However, the Regulations on the Personnel Management of Public Institutions, amended in 2014, only stipulate the circumstances under which an employer may terminate an employment contract, and the provisions on compensation are limited to "damage to the reputation of the parties in violation of the provisions of these Regulations".
Therefore, Wang Lin's lawyer told her, "If you are in a company, the Labor Law can protect the rights and interests of employees, but because the establishment of public institutions is generally considered to be relatively stable, it is rare for the employment to be not renewed when it expires." Therefore, this situation does not meet the conditions for compensation under the Labour Code. ”
Referring to a judgment issued by the Shanghai Xuhui District People's Court on a dispute over the non-renewal of employment of a public institution, the court ruled that the two parties were not in an employment relationship and that the employer was not required to pay compensation on the grounds that "laws and regulations do not provide for compensation for the illegal termination of employment contracts in personnel relations, and there is no provision in the employment contract signed between the public institution and the staff member with whom the personnel relationship has established a personnel relationship". This means that even if you appeal, it will be very difficult to win.
Wang Lin had to give up defending her rights, re-examined within a year and joined a new school across districts, and now she is also the head of the class and the class teacher, and her outstanding teaching performance and performance in open classes have allowed her to get rid of the haze of the past year, although she still does not know why she is the one who has been eliminated. "Is it true that a teacher can only defend his rights and interests through petitioning? I look forward to a clearer system that protects the interests of schools as well as teachers. ”
Will the Future Business Editor be cancelled?
With the development of the economy, some public institutions have not been clearly positioned, and there is no separation between government and affairs, and there is no separation between government and enterprises, resulting in unreasonable allocation of resources and low quality and efficiency of public welfare services. Therefore, in 2011, the "Guiding Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Reform of Public Institutions by Classification" was issued, which divided the existing public institutions into three categories according to their social functions: undertaking administrative functions, engaging in production and business activities, and engaging in public welfare services.
For those who undertake administrative functions, their administrative functions shall be gradually transferred to administrative organs or transferred to administrative agencies; For those engaged in production and business activities, they will gradually be transformed into enterprises; For those engaged in public interest services, continue to retain them in the sequence of public institutions, and strengthen their public interest attributes. Among them, those who undertake basic public welfare services such as compulsory education, basic scientific research, public culture, public health, and basic medical services at the grassroots level, and cannot or should not allocate resources by the market, are classified as public welfare; Those undertaking public welfare services such as higher education and non-profit medical care, which may be partially allocated by the market, are classified as public welfare II. The former will continue to implement the examination and approval system for the establishment of institutions, while the latter will gradually implement the establishment and filing system.
Reforms continue. Although there are differences in the intensity and progress of reform in various localities and regions, the reform of public institutions has undoubtedly entered a stage of reshaping, and the ultimate goal is to optimize the existing layout and structure, improve efficiency, and at the same time arouse the enthusiasm of personnel.
Many interviewees believe that with the deepening of the reform, many public institutions are being gradually abolished along with the classified management of public institutions, but the establishment of public institutions itself will not disappear completely, and public institutions with strong public welfare will still retain their establishments, while highly competitive units will be marketized. In addition, the popularization of the employment system and the establishment of a reasonable remuneration system may also provide more opportunities for promotion and a more flexible working environment, which will help to stimulate the motivation and creativity of the people in the system.
For those who want to take the career editor, the career editor can still provide high employment stability and welfare protection, especially in public welfare institutions, "based on the situation I have contacted, on the whole, it is still a small number of people, and the stability of the establishment is still the core competitiveness of schools in the compulsory education stage." Wang Jian told YiMagazine. However, given the current reform trend, public institutions may pay more attention to efficiency and service quality in the future, which means that the work may be more challenging, but also accompanied by new opportunities. We should re-understand the "career editor".
(Source: Yicai)