Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) yesterday said it has had more than 30,000 applicants for the 874 jobs it has open in its current recruitment campaign.
The state-owned company said it received a total of 34,165 applications, a 10-year high, while the number of job openings also marked a 10-year high.
Taipower had 830 job openings last year, while in previous years the total number of annual new jobs was less than 600.
The number of annual job applicants ranged between 16,000 and 21,000 in previous years.
Taipower has scheduled examinations on Monday at 18 venues in Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Hualien to identify qualified applicants for the job openings.
Due to the high number of applicants, less than 2.6 percent are expected to be hired this year, compared with the 6.11 percent who were taken on last year.
The company is seeking recruits for a wide range of jobs, such as electricity transmission and allocation staff, office administration and, for the first time, advertising designers.
The company said that 1,290 people have applied for the four ad designer slots.
Human resources advisers said that the huge number of job applicants shows that jobseekers are eager to find a position in a state-run company like Taipower, which guarantees stable employment.
Such public-sectors posts are considered “iron rice bowls” that cannot be broken no matter how incompetent an employee might prove to be.
Another reason is that the utility only requires job applicants to be senior-high school graduates, which is a relatively low threshold, the advisers said.
The starting salary for qualified applicants is NT$23,000 per month, but it could rise to NT$30,420 or more if the applicant signs a formal employment contract with the firm following the completion of a series of training courses, Taipower said.
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