Authorities across China are holding a series of job fairs as part of a hiring drive to create employment opportunities and ease labor shortages in critical and essential services sectors.

In east China's Shandong province, a job fair was held Thursday in Zibo city, with over 26,000 potential job applicants attending the event.

Around 268 private companies from sectors including mechanical processing, new materials, biomedicine and Internet technology have over 8,500 positions needing to be filled. Over 9,600 job seekers have signaled their intention to be linked with employers at the event.

"I'm looking for a finance-related job and hope I can stay and work here for longer periods. Because the scale and quality of companies here is quite good," said Wang Yuchen, one of the job applicants.

The event was part of the nationwide hiring promotion program "Spring Breeze Action" which runs from January to March, during which the province of Shandong is planning to host over 2,200 online and in-person job fairs to provide over 600,000 job opportunities

Meanwhile, similar government-organized job fairs took place across central China's Henan province.

In the provincial capital Zhengzhou, a job fair featuring employers from multiple sectors, including intelligent technology, education, finance and construction was held in Zhongmou county, providing convenience to local job seekers.

Since the beginning of this year, Zhengzhou has held hundreds of online and in-person hiring events to provide 68,000 job opportunities from some 2,400 companies.

In Huojia county of Xinxiang city, villager Feng Zhiqiang has been offered a job after attending a local hiring event. Some 70 enterprises provided over 5,000 positions for recruitment.

"It happens to have a suitable position open for me. It's also close to home, which is convenient for me to go to work and take care of my family," said Feng.