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Civil Servants Stressed by Negative Public Image
Summary:An increase in the number of negative reports about civil servants is causing officials working at the lowest level of government to feel that they are being unfairly misrepresented.


May 28, 2013
Translated by Liu Jingyue

An increase in the number of negative reports about civil servants is causing officials working at the lowest level of government to feel that they are being unfairly misrepresented.

A recent survey conducted by the People’s Daily revealed that over half of the roughly 4,500 civil servant who took part felt that popular attitudes towards them were skewed.

The survey aimed to measure public opinion towards civil servants working at the lowest levels of government by collecting responses from 11,000 participants, 40 percent of which were officials.

The results revealed a huge gap between how civil servants view themselves and how they are seen by the public.

While 61 percent of the civil servants think the public have an excessively negative view of them, 45 percent of internet users said that civil servants enjoy an excessively positive image.

When asked to rate the performance of civil servants on a scale from 1 to 5, only 19 percent of civil servants and 13 percent of the public gave officials full marks.

Half of the civil servants who participated in the survey gave their colleagues a rating of 4 out of 5 whereas over half of internet users gave them marks of either 1 or 2 out of 5.

"In fact, most of the public who have worked with us are very supportive and understanding towards us," one of the civil servants who was surveyed said, "however on the Internet, many people who don't even know me are being critical and mean to me."

According to the survey, this "biased public opinion" has caused 70 percent of the civil servants to feel "stressed,"with about 30 percent of respondents saying they were "severely stressed."

The chief factors that are causing stress among them are "too many work evaluations," "heavy workload" and "lack of support from the public."

The People's Daily report quoted experts as saying that news reports in the recent years have exaggerated the negative portrayals of civil servants and are often connected with phrases like "forced demolition," "intercepting petitioners" and "secret prisons."

Links and Sources
People's Daily: 超半数受访基层干部认为形象被误读污名化

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