Several subsidiaries of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration have stipulated that close relatives of people in leadership positions must not be hired in order to prevent nepotism and ensure a fair hiring process, reports China Daily.
A recent notice issued by the Shandong Tobacco Monopoly Administration on the recruitment of new graduates states that applicants who are spouses or immediate family members of company leaders may not be hired. Relatives within three generations and relatives by marriage should also not be hired, it said.
The announcement quickly became a trending topic on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, over the weekend and was viewed more than 500 million times.
With economic headwinds in recent years, more graduates have opted for stable jobs in state-owned enterprises and competition has intensified. Netizens said preventing the hiring of close relatives of employees in state-owned enterprises is a good way to create a fairer employment environment for graduates. They also called for more transparent hiring practices in these companies and in government institutions.
The administrations of tobacco monopolies in Shanxi, Qinghai, Gansu, Henan and Yunnan provinces also issued similar notices this year, the report said. The Gansu administration stipulated that applicants who are related to workers – especially spouses, children and spouses of children – should not apply for a job with the administration. The Henan administration required applicants who are close relatives of workers to declare these relationships in their applications.
In 2020, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration issued restrictions on nepotism in hiring. In 2019, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security also issued requirements to prevent nepotism in government institutions.