China’s Zhejiang Zengzhou Shipbuilding is seeing a healthy build up of shipbuilding orders this year and is looking to hire more staff to oversee production, reports said.

The Zhejiang-based shipbuilder has advertised to recruit about 30 staff for various supervisory positions following the increase in orders, according to local media reports.

“We bagged a few large orders this year, filling up our yard capacity. We need more staff now,” a Zengzhou Shipyard official was quoted saying.

This year to date, the Chinese yard has locked in orders mainly from foreign shipowners for dry bulk carriers of 75,000 dwt, 57,000 dwt and 33,200 dwt, and multipurpose container vessels, sand digging vessel, among others.

The global shipbuilding industry, particularly in China, is reeling from a recession marked by surplus capacity, low margins and rising operating costs.

Established in 2007, Zengzhou Shipbuilding saw its business went downhill when the global financial crisis hit in the later part of 2008, also marking the start of a prolonged shipping and shipbuilding recession.

“In the first two years of our establishment, we basically had no large orders. During 2011 to 2012, we had to rely on jobs of constructing small fishing vessels. In 2013, even orders for fishing vessels were hard to find. We had to then significantly slow down our operations and layoff some workers,” the official was reported saying.

Zengzhou Shipyard is scheduled to deliver a 75,000-dwt bulker next year and a few other ships in 2016.

The company has also qualified to be one of the 51 first batch of ‘white list’ shipyards in China, giving the company a higher chance of getting policy support and recognition as a reputable yard.