(Yicai Global) May 24 -- Demand in China for medical and healthcare professionals is surging, despite grim employment prospects in many other sectors after businesses were hit by the recent outbreaks of Covid-19 in the country.

Shanghai as well as Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong provinces in eastern China, and the central province of Hunan are all recruiting large numbers of primary healthcare workers, according to local government recruitment ads.

Jiangsu’s health authority is urgently looking to fill 1,403 positions in 399 township and community-level health centers in fields such as clinical medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health and medical technology.

Health centers in Suzhou, Wuxi and Zhenjiang in the south of the province, and Xuzhou, Yancheng and Suqian in the north are also on the hunt for thousands of medical staff.

A lot of smart manufacturing has been outsourced to the smaller second- and third-tier cities and they are also in need of more talent.

The sectors of new energy, new materials, biomedicine and smart manufacturing, particularly for cars, are all hiring, said Jin Li, acting vice president of the Southern University of Science and Technology. Foreign trade and cross-border e-commerce are also among the industries less affected by Covid-19 outbreaks and have many job vacancies, he added.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor