Maria Pan (潘翠萍), Lee and Huang’s supervisor, said more than 200 men in the substitute military service had been assigned to work at Dapeng Bay, and they don’t just offer job opportunities to anybody.
“Only those who have proven to us that they are capable and have a good work attitude will be asked to return,” Pan said.
Lee and Huang could be the last batch of substitute military men in the area, as the Ministry of the National Defense announced in March that the nation would soon replace conscripts with career soldiers by 2014.
“I don’t think I would be doing this if it weren’t for the substitute military service, which I think gives people the chance to continue practicing their expertise and explore different career options,” Lee said. “Canceling the substitute military service may affect some people, particularly those who still have no idea what they really want to do by the time they graduate, because it means now they won’t even have time to think about what their next step is going to be.”
Huang said working in the government department as a substitute military serviceman was a good work experience that one normally only gets after passing the civil servant exams. He said the service also gives the government a year to evaluate potentially qualified personnel who probably would have never considered a government job otherwise.
Statistics from the conscription agency under the Ministry of the Interior showed there were a total of 18,139 substitute military servicemen in different government departments as of March this year. Aside from office work, they also serve in different capacities, such as playing for second-tier baseball teams in the Chinese Professional Baseball League or offering medical services to the nation’s diplomatic allies.
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