THE city’s first job fair after the Spring Festival holiday was held in Longgang District yesterday, ushering in the Spring Breeze job fair season that will see more than 300 job fairs to be held until April.

The fair, organized by the city’s human resources and social security bureau and Longgang District Government, attracted 61 enterprises including AMTC, a manufacturer of liquid crystal display TVs, and BYD. They provided 6,000 vacancies of 500 posts in a dozen of industries like electronic information, digital economy, smart manufacturing and new energy.

A total of 8,000 jobseekers visited the fair in person while 20,000 watched live streaming of the fair. More than 2,000 jobseekers reached tentative agreements with employers, according to the organizers.

“For the job fair, we started preparations before the Spring Festival by visiting and sending questionnaires to enterprises to learn about employers’ needs,” Tang Yishun, director with the Longgang Human Resources Service Center, said.

The survey results showed that the demand for blue-collar workers took up 66.7% of total job needs, according to Tang. The demand for technicians and researchers also increased due to industrial upgrading.

A graduate surnamed Zhang submitted applications to three companies and reached initial agreements with two of them.

“I found news about the job fair on the internet and am attracted by the working and living environment here in Longgang, where I will most probably start my career,” said Zhang.

Longgang District will organize more than 40 job fairs in 11 subdistricts, according to Tang.

Between January and April, the city plans to organize a total of 336 job fairs, both online and offline. The city faces a shortage of 80,000 workers after the Spring Festival holiday, according to the bureau.

As of the end of December 2023, the registered employed population in Shenzhen had reached 12.559 million, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 1.72% and a month-on-month increase of 0.03%.

So far, around 80.3% of local businesses have resumed operations. It is anticipated that 99% will have resumed operations by Saturday, the Lantern Festival and last day of Chinese New Year celebrations. The number of blue-collar workers returning to work will reach 92% by Saturday.