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More than a thousand jobseekers poured through the doors of the Cardiff Jobs Fair within an hour of it opening.

Hundreds of jobs at more than 40 firms were on offer at the event in Cardiff’s City Hall.

Career prospects including the armed forces, hospitality, catering and retail were showcased at the fair, which sprawled across two floors.

Those attending the event were also able to brush up their CVs, receive redundancy advice and listen to motivational speakers making presentations on different aspects of find a job.

Major employers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Hilton Hotels and Lloyds TSB were also represented.

The free event was organised by Cardiff council’s Local Training & Enterprise team in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and Careers Wales.

Peter Cronin, employer liaison officer for Cardiff council, said: “This is the fifth event of its kind as we usually have one in the spring and one in the autumn.

“We are living in a difficult climate regarding jobs and I think this is reflected in the cross-section of people we have coming through the door. There is a huge cross section of jobseekers, from young people just out of college to the person in their mid 40s who has been made redundant.

“We had around 240 vacancies on offer and lots of opportunities for job seekers.”

Among the jobseekers was college student Mark Williams, from Ely, Cardiff, who has applied for more than 300 jobs, received three interviews and no offers.

“I have been looking for a job since June last year,” says the 18 year old.

“It is really difficult to find anything and knocks your confidence. I came to the fair to see what is around and I signed up to the Prince’s Trust.

“I hadn’t heard about their work before coming to the fair. I have signed up for voluntary work with them because it will look good on my CV and they told me that 75% of their people go on to get jobs.”

Young mums Victoria Whitfield, 22, Alana Moyles-Chick, 21, and 19-year-old Katherine Culbertson, from Llanishen, Cardiff, came along in the hope of finding jobs that could fit around childcare for their young sons.

“It is really difficult to find a job when you have young children,” said Victoria.

“I went back to work after having my son Tyler-Joseph, but it was impossible to work the hours and try to juggle childcare. I was having to ask friends and family to help out all the time and he was being moved around too much. In the end I had to give it up. It is really hard.”

Her friend Alana, who has a one-year-old son Charlie-Alan, agreed: “People think that you don’t want to work, but it is the opposite. I would love to be able to get out and have a job, but the hours available and the cost of childcare make it really difficult.

“I didn’t expect it to be quite so busy, it just shows how many people there are out there looking for jobs.”