The launch ceremony of the series of activities to mark the third Ningbo Talent Day is held in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province on April 20. [Photo/WeChat account: nbfb0574]

A series of recruitment activities will be staged in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province starting from April 20.

The activities are to mark the third Ningbo Talent Day, which falls on the first day of Grain Rain, a solar term in the traditional Chinese lunar calendar.

The talent day, first celebrated in 2019, is meant to attract worldwide talents to seek employment or start businesses in the city.

Ningbo has made significant progress in expanding its talent pool in recent years.

In a report released by Welian.com, the global Zhejiang businesspeople research institute at Zhejiang University, and Liepin.com in 2020, Ningbo was ranked sixth among 32 major cities nationwide in terms of the ecology for talents, behind only Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou.

The cities were evaluated based on factors including economic strength, science and innovation capability, and social culture and life.

In 2020, the city attracted 166,000 college graduates, a year-on-year growth of 20.3 percent. More than 10,000 of these graduates held a master's degree or above. The number of overseas students also saw a year-on-year uptick of 24.7 percent.

Last year, the city added another 14 national postdoctoral workstations and 35 provincial postdoctoral workstations.

Four people were included in a program launched by Ningbo to cultivate top-tier talents, bringing the total number of such talents in the city to eight.