A job fair for graduates and scholars returning from overseas will be held by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange under the Ministry of Education on March 29.

A total of 120 universities, enterprises and organizations will participate in the job fair, providing more than 1,000 job positions for those returning from overseas, Sun Jianming, director general of the center, said during a news conference on Monday.

Foreign-funded companies and joint ventures will account for about one-fourth of the 120 participants.

Sun also said about 3,000 people returning from overseas are expected to attend the job fair this year.

This is the third job fair that the service center has organized for returning Chinese.

About 353,500 students returned to China from overseas education in 2013, up 29.5 percent compared with 2012.

"The gap between the number of people who returned from overseas and the number of people going abroad is shrinking year on year," Sun said.

Jin Sheng, director of the personnel department of China University of Geosciences, said the university will mainly look for people with an overseas doctoral degree at this year's job fair.

"Among the new teaching staff we have recruited in recent years, about one-third of them are overseas graduates, or have overseas study experiences," Jin said.

The job fair will be held at Beijing Landmark Tower Hotel. Information about the job fair is available at zhaopin.cscse.edu.cn.