About 100 jobs were up for grabs on Wednesday at P.E.I.’s annual information technology (IT) job fair.

Hundreds of Islanders came to Charlottetown for a chance to apply for IT jobs.

Thinking Big, an application developer and jack-of-all-trades IT company, lured potential employees to their booth with the chance to play retro video games.

“We are looking for motivated, driven people that like to have fun as well,” said Alastair Grant of Thinking Big.

The application developer is one of 16 companies scouting for talent at this year's IT job fair.

Technology companies ranging from software developers to video game creators to phone tech support attended the event looking to fill about 100 jobs.

“Some of the jobs that are most in demand right now are software developers, programmers, business analysts, and project managers,” said Mike Gillis, innovation director at the Innovation Technology Association of P.E.I. (ITAP).

Les Chappelle, who worked for the province in IT support but lost his job last year following cutbacks, said he has been looking for work ever since.

“I’m getting a little bit desperate now,” said Chappelle. “Nowadays everyone's looking for programmers. Not exactly too hopeful but you never know.”

ITAP said the sector is holding steady at about 2,300 jobs over the last several years on P.E.I.

Some employers told CBC News they find it difficult to find local people with enough experience in the sector.

Chris Darrach with Cogsdale, another P.E.I. IT company that has more than 100 employees across North America, said his company prefers to hire Islanders.

“There are certain positions we certainly want to have certain experience for, and a lot of the people who have the experience are working for companies they’re working for and have been for a long time,” said Darrach. “So we can't necessarily pull them away.”