More eye jobs in civil service

THE number of top students bound for university who are eyeing civil service careers went up in the past year.

Where under a quarter - 23 per cent - last year said they wanted public-sector jobs, more than a third - 34 per cent - did so this year.

Banking and financial service jobs, however, remained a top choice among them despite the recent upheavals in the industry. These figures come from a recent poll, the 2009 BrightSparks Scholarship Rankings and Career Survey.

Human resource specialists said the turn of the tide towards civil service jobs could have been caused by the current economic downturn, because the perception is that such jobs provide more of an iron rice bowl than do those in the private sector.

The executive director of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, Mr David Ang, also put the trend down to the greater visibility of the public sector; a few government agencies have made high-profile announcements of their recent hiring drives.

He added: 'There's also the perception that there is greater job security and that job hunters have a better bet at landing a job in the public sector than in the private sector.'

The BrightSparks survey polled some 3,250 A-level and International Baccalaureate (IB) holders, final-year polytechnic students and students in their first and second year of university a few months ago.

The survey defined top students as A-level holders with at least three As for subjects taken at the mainstream H2 level, and IB graduates who scored at least 39 points. There were 1,360 such students in the survey.

Careers in the banking and financial services sector were also the top choice among the student sample as a whole.

Mr Ang said he was not surprised. The recent crisis in the banking and finance industry had not wiped off the relative sheen of the field, he said.

- The Straits Times