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Promise of jobs draws hundreds
By DAN DeWITT BROOKSVILLE -- The Opportunity 2002 job fair was designed to bring people like Terri Fava together with companies like ARAMARK -- even if they didn't know it yet. Fava, 32, had been a manager at the recently closed Denny's Restaurant in Brooksville. Her best chance for a good new job, she said, was in food service. But she wanted secure work with benefits, which she said is rare in the restaurant world. "I'm looking for anything with insurance, retirement and steady pay," said Fava, a Brooksville resident. Just a few feet down the aisle she was standing in, Lynn Baxley was pitching the opportunities available at ARAMARK, an international corporation that, among its many enterprises, manages kitchens in prisons and jails. It had recently won the contract to feed prisoners in Indiana and Illinois, Bailey said, and was in great need of experienced food service managers. "I got a few, maybe 20 qualified people," Baxley said. "I need about 100." Many equally well-matched employers and prospective employees connected at the job fair, which was held Friday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Hernando County Fairgrounds. More than 600 job-seekers attended, said Tony Melendez, employee service manager for Career Central, a company contracted by the state Department of Labor to find work for Floridians. The event was sponsored by Hernando Today. Melendez's agency had a booth set up to connect people seeking work with available jobs on its Web site. Other tables at the fairground's auditorium were crowded with people filling out job applications. At some of the booths of the 29 private companies and public agencies represented, prospective workers were lined up. It all suggested what Melendez said: Hernando has a real need for such an event. The jobless rate has climbed from 3.3 percent in 2000 to 3.8 percent last year, to more than 4 percent in February of this year. Although the rate has dipped slightly from its high of 5.9 percent in June, it remains above 5 percent, according to statistics from the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. The job fair is not a cure, Melendez said, but it could help considerably, partly because of the wide variety of jobs available and the qualifications of the applicants. The companies and agencies represented included Sparton Electronics, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, Joni Industries, Oak Hill Hospital and SunTrust Bank/Nature Coast. The job seekers were people of all ages, from recent high school graduates, to military veterans just returning to the private sector, to retirees looking for part-time work. Marti Boyle, of Accuform Manufacturing Inc., a Spring Hill sign-making company, said that "we had everybody from office managers to factory workers stop by today." She had met several qualified applicants for two existing openings at the company -- for a part time stocking clerk and a full time shipping clerk, she said. The company had also added to the stockpile of prospective employees it keeps in its files. "We had a lot of good people stop by today," she said. Some people, including Fava, were open to the idea of new challenges. Besides food-service work, she said, she was interested in breaking into the computer field. Others, such as Michelle Hogan, 29, were just looking for steady work. Her family moved to Florida from New Hampshire about a month ago. "My husband got laid off and we figured we'd come down here," she said. "New start." She planned to apply for waitressing jobs, factory work or dishwashing. "Something I've done before, so I know I can do it," she said.
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From today's Hernando Times |
