A staggering 2.3 million people applied for tea making and errand running jobs in India after several hundred job opening for low-level officer workers were announced.
Applicants for the 368 jobs with the government of Uttar Pradesh - which pay about 16,000 rupees (£150) a month - included hundreds with doctorates and other advanced degrees.
The huge number of people seeking the basic jobs reflects the high levels of unemployment in India’s most populous state.
Alok Ranjan, senior government officer, said: “This is astoundingly high number of applicants.
“This reflects the condition of job market in India and shows desperation of the youth who despite being highly educated is ready to do a job where he has to run errands and wash tea cups and saucers.”
Senior administrative officer Prabhat Mittal said the state government will conduct a written exam to screen the applicants because interviewing all of them would take four years.
At least 255 applicants had a doctorate, more than 200,000 had graduate degrees and at least 30 trained computer engineers were among those who applied.
The jobs were advertised in August and applications closed on September 14.
