Peter Strijdonk visits the Chinajobs.com job fair for networking purposes.

They're from the United Kingdom, Austria, Pakistan or the United States. Hundreds of job hunters gather at the Swissotel in Beijing on an April afternoon. They're smiling, chatting and full of expectation. Their positive mood stands in striking contrast to the gloom overshadowing their home countries, where the economy is facing the most severe downturn in decades.

Catchwords such as "bankruptcy", "depression" and "recession" are dominating the headlines there. But in Beijing it's not a belly-up, it's a thumbs up.

"It's the seventh time that the Chinajob.com job fair has taken place, and never before there were so many visitors," says Michael Li, organizer of the event, which attracted more than 1,100 job hunters, more than double than last year.

"China and especially Beijing are less affected by the crisis than almost anywhere else," explains Li's colleague Christina Yang.

There is still an increase in the job market - and not only in terms of quantity of positions, but also the quality. "Compared to previous years, the jobs offered demand higher qualification and imply a higher salary," she says.

Language teaching positions are still the top dog: 37 out of 56 exhibitors at the job fair were looking for foreign language experts, like Argentine Laura Leiro, who strolls through the fair booths with a pack of CVs in her hand.

The 25 year old came to Beijing to studying Chinese and wants to finance it by teaching Spanish.

"I plan to do that for a year or two and then make the most out of my multilingualism," she says.

Fred Khan, 31, from Pakistan already works as an English teacher. He regards the job fair as a chance to test his market value and "to see about the possibilities".

After three years in Beijing, both he and his wife feel at home, he says.

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