Nearly 500 people attended a job fair for foreigners at a hotel in downtown Shanghai over the weekend.

Employers at the fair were looking to fill more than 1,400 jobs for foreigners. Most of the vacancies were education-related, including jobs at language training centers and international schools.

Some recruiters came from neighboring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. But officials from this language training school from the city of Jinhua in Zhejiang said it was hard to recruit employees at the fair.

“It’s almost impossible for us to hire English teachers at Shanghai’s job fair, because most job seekers don’t like to go to smaller cities like Jinhua. We created some benefits to attract foreign employees like we built an apartment building for them, and take them to many places to travel in China. And now it only takes 90 minutes from Shanghai to Jinhua by high-speed train. But the situation is still hard for us,” said Kahar Baixier from Kid’s Harbor.

The Jinhua language training school also found job seekers at this year’s fair were much younger than in the past.

“This is our second time to attend the fair, and I saw many of the visitors are young graduates. But at last year’s job fair, many people already had work experience,” Baixier said.

A survey released by international recruitment company Michael Page says China’s employment market is expected to boom this year as over half of employers in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan plan to hire more people over the next 12 months.

This is the fourth year Shanghai has hosted the job fair, which also made stops in Beijing and Shenzhen.