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TAMPA — Hundreds of job seekers lined up early this morning for a job fair hosted by the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, forcing event organizers to open hours earlier than planned.
The fair at the Florida State Fairgrounds was scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. Lines started forming at 3:30 a.m., however, so Hard Rock officials decided to open the doors at 7 a.m.
By 10:30 a.m., more than 1,000 people had come through the doors. Hard Rock officials said no more interviews would be conducted today but that others would be asked to return later in the week.
Among the fortunate were Philmore Navarrete, 23, and his sister Tamara, 22. The duo, who arrived a little after 7 a.m., had wound through the interview process, background check, and hiring confirmation.
Less than four hours later, they were at the final stage, wardrobe. Philmore had landed a job as a cashier and Tamara as a restaurant hostess.
The casino is hoping to fill 400 positions, though more than 3,000 people registered early, said casino spokeswoman Gina Morales.
The casino is hiring more staff as part of its $75 million expansion, the first phase of which is scheduled to be concluded in June.
Available jobs include chefs, cooks, servers, bartenders, cashiers, Player’s Club reps and technicians.
Toni Jackson, No. 740 in line, was seeking a job as a cook. Jackson, 43, said she’s been in cooking for 23 years, currently with the Hillsborough County School system.
“I love the schools; I love the kids. But there are no hours and no pay,” she said. “I’m determined I will walk out with a job. I’m Italian and I’m determined. Plus, I’m small, and my mother always say dynamite comes in small packages. So there you go.”
For more information, go to jobsforflorida.com.
EDMUNDSTON, NEW BRUNSWICK–(Marketwire – April 16, 2012) - The Government of Canada, in partnership with the Government of New Brunswick, will provide new funding to help Edmundston youth gain the skills, knowledge and experience they need to enter and succeed in the job market. The Honourable Bernard Valcourt, Minister of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) (La Francophonie) and Member of Parliament for Madawaska-Restigouche, made the announcement today on behalf of the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, and the Honourable Martine Coulombe, New Brunswick’s Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour.
“Our government’s top priority is creating jobs and economic growth,” said Minister of State Valcourt. “Our government’s Youth Employment Strategy is helping youth develop the skills and gain the experience they need to get jobs now and prepare for the workforce of tomorrow.”
The organization Resnet Inc. will receive over $55,000 as part of the Skills Link program to help youth overcome barriers to employment. Skills Link is part of the Government of Canada’s Youth Employment Strategy (YES).
The Government of New Brunswick will provide $135,600 for the project.
“We are proud to contribute to this workforce training project through our employment access programs,” stated Minister Coulombe. “This initiative will also help protect the environment, as the recycling of computer materials will lead to fewer electronic devices being sent to landfills.”
With annual funding of more than $300 million, YES helps youth, particularly those facing barriers to employment, obtain career information, develop employment skills, find jobs and stay employed. YES includes the Skills Link and Career Focus programs and the Canada Summer Jobs initiative, which creates thousands of job opportunities for students every summer.
In the 2012 Economic Action Plan, the government proposes an additional 50 million dollars over two years for the Youth Employment Strategy to help more youth acquire practical skills and concrete experience. This investment will serve primarily to connect young Canadians with jobs in fields that are in high demand.
Participants in the Resnet Inc. project will attend workshops that will prepare them for an active life and help them acquire skills that are transferrable to the labour market, such as communications and problem solving. They will then have an opportunity to put those skills into practice through concrete work experience.
Youth employment programs are part of the Government of Canada’s broader strategy to create an educated, skilled and flexible workforce. The Government underscored its commitment to this strategy in Canada’s Economic Action Plan. A key component of the Plan is to create more and better opportunities for Canadian workers through skills development. To learn more about Canada’s Economic Action Plan, visit www.actionplan.gc.ca.
The Government of Canada is helping youth prepare for, find and maintain meaningful employment through enhanced online services available at Youth.gc.ca.
IF THERE IS A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANY PRINTED VERSION AND THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, THE ELECTRONIC VERSION WILL PREVAIL.
This news release is available online at: www.actionplan.gc.ca.
BACKGROUNDER
The Youth Employment Strategy is the Government of Canada’s commitment to help youth make a successful transition to the workplace.
Skills Link helps youth facing barriers to employment, such as single parents, youth with disabilities, and youth in rural and remote areas, to develop the skills and gain the experience needed to find a job or the confidence to return to school.
Career Focus provides funding to employers to hire young post-secondary graduates to give them career-related work experience and help them acquire skills to transition into the job market.
Canada Summer Jobs provides funding to not-for-profit organizations, public-sector employers and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees to create summer job opportunities for young people aged 15 to 30 years who are full-time students intending to return to their studies in the next school year.
To learn more about Canada’s Youth Employment Strategy and other youth employment initiatives, please visit Youth.gc.ca.
At a sometimes heated hearing today where members of the House got to express outrage about the excessive and wasteful spending by officials from the General Services Administration during a 2010 conference in Las Vegas, the man at the center of the scandal refused to testify.
Jeff Neely, the regional official who was in charge of a conference that led to the resignation of GSA’s top administrator and the dismissal of several others, asserted his Fifth Amendment rights in declining to answer questions.
Martha Johnson, who stepped down as GSA administrator because of the scandal, said she had no idea until well after the fact that the conference “had evolved into a raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self congratulatory event that ultimately belittled federal workers.” She again apologized to the nation.
We posted about the hearing before it began and updated this post while it was happening. Later, NPR’s Carrie Johnson will be reporting about it for All Things Considered. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show.
Our original post and earlier updates:
The regional commissioner who planned a lavish General Services Administration conference that was so “excessive and wasteful” that GSA’s top administrator had to resign and several other officials lost their jobs is among those due at a 1:30 p.m. ET hearing being held by the House Committee on Oversight Government Reform.
That regional official, Jeff Neely, is expected to invoke his right to remain silent.
The committee says it will be streaming the hearing here. This morning, committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) complained on Fox News that while Neely has been put on administrative leave, he’s still being paid.
Among others due at the witness table this afternoon are Martha Johnson, who resigned from her post as GSA’s adminstrator (the agency’s top job) just before a scathing report about the 2010 conference in Las Vegas was released from GSA’s inspector general.
The agency, which manages the federal government’s buildings and real estate, incurred “excessive pre-conference planning, catering, and other costs, as well as … luxury accommodations” that were “incompatible with its obligation to be a responsible steward of the public’s money,” its inspector general concluded.
We’ll keep an eye on the hearing and update this post with news from it later today.
Some examples of the excesses associated with the conference, attended by about 300 people:
— “$146,527.05 on catered food and beverages.”
— Travel expenses for planning alone “totaled $100,405.37.”
— “During scouting trips, GSA ‘VIPs’ were shown upgraded suites that they received as a perk for GSA contracting with the M Resort.”
— “GSA spent $6,325 on commemorative coins ‘rewarding’ all conference participants.”
— One “networking reception” along cost $31,208, or more than $100 per person.
— GSA spent in all, $686,247 on “travel, catering and vendors” during the four-day conference.
Issa’s committee has been posting videos and other evidence of the waste inside GSA, including this “mashup.”
Update at 3 p.m. ET. Possible Bribes And Kickbacks.
The latest Associated Press report on the hearing begins with this:
“The General Services Administration inspector general said Monday that he’s investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as a central figure in a GSA spending scandal asserted his right to remain silent at a congressional hearing.
“Inspector general Brian Miller, responding to a question at the hearing, said, ‘We do have other ongoing investigations, including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, including possible kickbacks.’ “
Update at 2:45 p.m. ET. Concerns About Retaliation:
GSA Inspector Brian Miller just testified that during his investigation he ran across employees who were concerned about retaliation if they cooperated with him. One witness “was extremely afraid,” he said, “that even in her new job she would experience retaliation.”
Update at 2:04 p.m. ET. Neely Declines To Say Anything:
Asserting that he’s been advised by his counsel not to answer any questions, Neely has declined to answer any questions from Issa — including whether he attended the conference and even whether he is currently employed by GSA.
He has also declined to answer a question about whether he would be willing to answer any questions.
In her opening statement, Johnson said she again apologizes for what happened and that “I will mourn for the rest of my life the loss of my employment” at GSA.
The insurance employment market in the East and Northeast regions — as in most other parts of the country — can be summed up the following way: hiring is “slightly elevated” compared to last year, but there is still a long, long way to go.
On the brighter side, there is some optimism building in the insurance community that the nation’s economy is finally making a strong recovery. Gradually firming premium rates are also providing hope.
Liberty Mutual is one of the companies with growing optimism. The Boston-headquartered insurer posted more than 500 U.S. job openings on its corporate website. Nearly half of those vacancies are in Massachusetts. However, it’s not easy to land these jobs. The company says it gets thousands of applications every month.
The company says that for the overall P/C insurance industry, “it seems hiring is slightly elevated in 2012 versus last year.” Shawn Tubman, manager of corporate employment, observed that in some functions, like within IT and distribution, there is now some serious competition to attract talent among companies.
Tubman also said he’s seeing increased competition for underwriting in the commercial market space as well as for claims professionals. “I would say across the board, hiring seems to be slightly elevated within the industry.”
“As companies are starting to hire again, there is an indication that the competition for best candidates will heat up,” he said. “We are always on the lookout for talent.”
He said Liberty Mutual has been seeing a bump-up in temp hiring in the industry, a trend that often precedes more full-time staff hiring.
Another trend in the job market, according to the Liberty Mutual executive, is the increasing importance of social media tools — especially professional social network LinkedIn.
“At Liberty Mutual, we see candidates coming to us directly and engaging us through a variety of social media vehicles,” Tubman said. “Social media has given candidates a good avenue to connect directly with the company. That’s really different from years past.”
The Graham Co., an insurance and employee benefits brokerage firm in Philadelphia, said it plans to hire several more employees soon. “We are primarily going to hire five new sales people, and at least five professional support people — account managers and claims consultants. Plus, we’re adding administrative support personnel,” said Mike Mitchell, vice chairman. His firm currently has around 150 full-time employees.
But he said it could still be a while before hiring in the brokerage and agency sector really picks up.
“For the most part, I still don’t see a lot of hiring,” Mitchell said. “The majority of hiring I see is to replace people who are leaving. It’s not to increase headcount.”
He said the industry is hoping to grow its top line revenue this year, primarily because the industry is now seeing some increases in premiums. “But I have not yet seen that expectation of revenue growth translate into more hiring.”
“I don’t think the insurance industry is quite ready to believe that the economy has turned around and that there is going to be more growth and profitability,” Mitchell said. “The insurance industry has not been very profitable. A lot of major companies, especially public companies, probably want to see results first. And then from there, perhaps they will add more people.”
And even firms with improving financial results are not in a hurry to hire more people, because many have gotten used to doing more with less during the downturn. “Firms are not that willing to quickly add more bodies, in the environment we are in right now,” Mitchell observed.
“There are certainly signs of recovery but still people just aren’t sure. I don’t think it’s getting any worse. We are not seeing layoffs anymore. I think things have stabilized in that regard.”
Here is one sign that the economy is still far from healthy: a surplus of job applicants with decades of professional experience, even from other, unrelated businesses. In recent weeks, The Graham Co. narrowed its overflowing files of job applicants down to 30 top candidates for 10 available professional positions. Among those remaining candidates, about 10 of them were practicing attorneys. “There must be something going on in the world of law that I guess is not very appealing. I can’t explain that,” he said.
Woodbury, N.Y.,-based brokerage firm Sterling Sterling agreed that it will take more time before hiring picks up steam.
Many of the larger brokers are still hesitant to hire, according to David Sterling, the firm’s CEO. “Because if you look at large, national brokers, they are publicly owned or owned by hedge-fund investors who want stronger earnings. It’s hard to hire in an environment when revenues have been flat to down.”
Sterling said he, like many other brokers, is “very open” to someone coming to the firm in a production capacity. “The advice for job seekers out there is that in insurance, there is always opening for sales. The thing with sales positions is that typically, best salespeople are predominantly performance-compensated.”
He said it’s been a zero-sum game for the entire universe of insurance brokerages over the last two years. “In other words, premium dollars were flat to down over the last two years. The only way for some people to do additional hiring was by taking businesses away from other brokers.”
“We see rates firming but we still have a majority of the premiums staying flat. We have some premiums going up in difficult classes such as construction in New York metropolitan area,” Sterling said.
At the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, there are also signs that the job market is improving, albeit slowly.
Diane Mattis, associate vice president of professional development, said she’s been noticing this year an uptick in the number of job posted on the group’s job board. “I would say about 40 percent of those are account manager positions,” she said. The website currently lists more than 100 open jobs.
Among medium-sized agencies, about two-thirds are hiring new producers. Among smaller agencies, between a quarter and a half of them are now hiring new producers, according to Mattis. “So we are starting to see an uptick this year.”
Todd Mitchell, a recruiter in New York, is also seeing an uptick, but so far, just barely.
“Compared to previous years, it’s better, but it’s still pretty flat,” said Mitchell, who runs a P/C insurance recruiting firm, Todd Mitchell Associates, in New Hyde Park, N.Y.
“There is always a market for a producer on the broker side,” he said. “If a broker can bring a book of business, any prudent CEO would be happy to hire that person.” On the services side, with the processing and clerical production, “there is no growth at all in that area,” he said.
Mitchell said areas with noticeably more hiring in 2012 include analytics at insurance companies, predictive modeling and strategic planning.
A recent survey by Insurance Journal confirms what many industry executives are seeing — many agencies are watching their budgets and have no plans to expand their staff, at least in 2012.
Insurance Journal, in its 2012 agency salary survey, recently asked agency owners about their hiring plans for the year. In five major Northeastern states, (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) 67 percent of 143 respondents said they plan to maintain their current staff size. Only 24 percent said they plan to increase their staff size. Also, 9 percent said they anticipate laying off some people in 2012.
Respondents from Pennsylvania had the most bullish hiring plans, with more than 40 percent saying they will hire more workers in 2012. In contrast, only 13 percent of the respondents in Massachusetts said they plan to hire more in 2012.
Farmers Insurance is a household name on the West Coast. But on the East Coast? Not so much. The 85-year-old insurer wants to change that, with a big expansion plan east of the Mississippi.
“We are the third-largest P/C insurer in the U.S.,” said Dennis Lusk, the company’s director of Farmers AgencyPoint facility in Cherry Hill, N.J. The office opened its doors in October 2011.
“We achieved that even though we weren’t truly a nationwide company at the time. We were a regional company, available to consumers in only 29 states. Now we have an assertive East Coast expansion program underway to make our products and services available practically nationwide,” Lusk said.
The Cherry Hill, N.J., office plans to recruit, train and performance-manage 105 new agency owners every year for next few years, as exclusive Farmers agents.
“We house them in our facility for 12 months and then they go back out into their communities to establish their own storefront office,” he said.
“It’s my mission to appoint approximately 300 Farmers exclusive agents in central and southern Jersey in the next few years. I have a counterpart in Parsippany, N.J., that is doing the same thing in the northern half of the state as well.”
The new large-scale, recruiting-and-training platform plan is to get East Coast states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland up as quickly as possible to the size of the company’s traditional model states such as Missouri and Oklahoma.
“We are bringing jobs and opportunities to the East Coast,” said Lusk.
“When our agents finish their 12-month program and go back out to their community, they are going to have staffing needs as well in their offices such as office managers, agency producers and customer service representatives. This translates into hundreds of new job opportunities per year.”
Employment prospects vary greatly by employer, region and job specialty. For a closer look, Insurance Journal editors interviewed property/casualty industry leaders in their respective regions and will be filing the following reports this week:
Close to 100 area employers will participate in a regional job fair Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Elmira College’s Murray Athletic Center (the Domes), off Route 14 in Horseheads.
The event is being organized by several groups from Chemung and Steuben counties including the Chemung County Chamber of Commerce, Corning Community College, the state Department of Labor, Chemung-Schuyler-Steuben Workforce New York and Southern Tier Economic Growth.
Dan Porter, executive director of the Chemung-Schuyler-Steuben Workforce New York office in Corning, said representatives from local manufacturing firms, health care and human service providers, retail outlets and “one or two wineries” will be on-site.
“We’ve asked that every employer have job openings and not be just colleting resumes,” said Porter.
This year’s event will be the fifth one held. Each year, Porter said, the organizers have been pleasantly surprised by the number of employers taking part — even during the recent recession years.
“In the depth of the downturn, I think more were looking to gather resumes or hand-pick people. But we usually have a batch of employers to work with,” he said.
“Some years, we’ve had more manufacturers and other years, we’ve had more smaller businesses. But this year, we have a good mix.”
Schuyler County Transit will provide transportation for job seekers looking to meet one-on-one with employers and apply for open positions.
This service is for Schuyler County residents and round-trip fare is $8. Reservations are required and seating is limited.
Schuyler buses will make two runs from the Human Services Complex in Montour Falls to the Murray Center.
The first bus will leave the Human Services Complex at 10:40 a.m. and arrive at the job fair at 11 a.m. The second bus will leave the Human Services Complex at 1:30 p.m. and arrive at the job fair at 1:50 p.m.
For Chemung County residents, the Lake Road bus, Route No. 6, will leave the downtown transit center at 11 a.m., make its regular stops along the route, and arrive at the job fair by 11:30 a.m.
The return trip will leave the Murray Athletic Center at 2:30 p.m. Fares will not increase for the route deviation.
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Nevadans receiving federal extended jobless benefits will be required to attend a re-employment orientation session under changes to the program that took effect this month, state officials said Thursday.
The new rules were included in legislation enacted in February when Congress extended emergency unemployment compensation through the end of the year. The law also reduces to 73 from 99 the maximum number of weeks for unemployment benefit eligibility, a change that takes effect in September.
Changes will affect about 75,000 claimants who currently receive or may file for extended emergency unemployment compensation that is paid by the federal government, said Renee Olson, administrator of the Nevada Employment Security Division.
People who don’t attend the orientation session or provide documentation of two to three work searches each week could lose their benefits.
“The purpose of the orientation is to ensure job search compliance, assist claimants with their re-employment efforts and improve the likelihood of claimants securing new employment,” Olson said.
People receiving benefits will be mailed notices about the mandatory orientation and given a time and location to appear for their session.
“The changes to the regulations are designed to transition individuals form unemployment benefits to gainful employment,” said Frank Woodbeck, director of the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. “In so doing, we will rebuild our economy, as well as provide individuals with a more permanent income.”
Nevada has led the nation in unemployment since May 2010. The state’s jobless rate peaked at a record 14.9 percent in December of that year before it began a gradual decline. In February, the rate was 12.3 percent and 168,000 Nevadans were out of work.
Barbara Taylor, a senior analyst with the Employment Security Division, said initial claimants for state benefits routinely have been randomly selected to participate in job orientation services.
The practice has since been eliminated, and safeguards put into place to prevent future abuse, thanks to a 2006 investigation by The Birmingham News that won the Pulitzer Prize, landed some legislators behind bars, and led to a 2010 law banning legislators from most forms of public sector employment. The investigation found that a fourth of the 140 members of the legislature were financially linked to the community college system through direct employment or contracts ranging from $162,930 a year for Rep. Yvonne Kennedy for serving as a college president to $2,340 for Rep. Charles Newton for teaching history classes. “There were laws that suggested that you shouldn’t do that, but often the laws were just kind of winked at,” says Eric Johnston, president of the Southeast Law Institute. “These employments were in the nature of political favors. ‘You really don’t have to work hard at this job, but when we need your help in the legislature, you’ll need to be sensitive to our needs.’” Most of the legislature tended to vote as a bloc with the Alabama Education Association on education issues, Johnston says. At the time, many of the legislators defended the dual employment arrangement with two-year colleges, insisting that they needed to earn a living. “I’m just a small-town boy that works for a living,” Representative Ralph Howard, who was given a job at a community college just after his 2005 election, told The Birmingham News. “I’m not one of those people tied to any of those political machines or shenanigans.” Multiple solutions “They need to be able to work,” says Rhode Island State Senator Elizabeth Crowley, who is sponsoring legislation that would allow classified state employees to run for public office. “You couldn’t survive on a legislative salary.” According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 17 states do not restrict legislators from holding government jobs at the state and local level in any way, 14 states ban some but not all forms of public employment, and 9 states ban public employment completely. Two states allow legislators to keep public jobs they held prior to their elections. An additional 8 states allow public employment as long as legislators aren’t double-billing taxpayers for the same hours worked. Dual employment is a common practice in Delaware, one of the states that follows those ground rules, but recent audits have found that public employers don’t always do a good enough job of record-keeping to protect against double-billing. Anthony DeLuca, the president pro tempore of the Delaware Senate, has come under scrutiny both from fellow legislators and the federal government because of his employment at the state Department of Labor. The scrutiny has included attempts to track his entrances and exits from his two offices, and the employment arrangement became a significant issue in his reelection campaign. Federal law prohibits dual employment arrangements for positions funded through federal grants. State legislation banning dual employment was debated last year but did not pass. Karl Kurtz, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, says that the one of the reasons the issue is so complex is that the majority of states still believe in the idea of a part-time “citizen” legislator, somebody who works like anyone else and takes time off to serve in public office. “There’s value in knowledge and experience in the community that makes you a better legislator,” Kurtz says. “My own view of it is that the key issue is disclosure. If the public knows that a legislator or someone running for public office is employed by the government, then voters can make a choice.” In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie has brought attention to the public employment conflict issue as part of a sweeping set of ethics reforms that have yet to get much traction in the legislature. The package includes a ban on dual office holding — a common practice in New Jersey municipalities, where it is possible to be both a legislator and a mayor at the same time — and a ban on drawing two public salaries at once. “We’ve been a little more tempered about that because it is a citizen legislature,” says Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie. The governor has stopped short of an outright ban on dual public employment because he believes that teachers, police, firefighters and others in public service should not be precluded from holding public office as a result of their profession. Still, New Jersey legislators are in session year-round and draw a $49,000 annual salary, so the governor wants to require them to forego one salary or the other. Johnston, of the Southeast Law Institute, believes a hard ban on public sector employment is necessary even though it forces legislators with backgrounds in public service to make hard choices, as has happened in Alabama. “The people I know that I would say are just regular people who are not trying to take advantage of the system, they gave up their public sector jobs so they could stay in the legislature,” says Johnston. “But in the long run it’s better this way. You avoid the corruption that is bound to arise.” Contact Melissa Maynard at mmaynard@pewtrusts.org
Alabama legislators aren’t compensated royally for their service, with base pay of $10 per day for most of the year and per diems to cover living expenses during the legislative session. But for years, many legislators could count on an additional perk: Supplemental income for themselves or their spouses from jobs in the two-year college system as instructors or administrators.
As clear-cut as the situation in Alabama may seem, the underlying question of whether state legislators should be able to hold other jobs in the public sector is not an easy one to resolve. Conflicts of interest and improper favor-granting are also possible with private sector gigs, and electing legislators with a wide range of expertise helps facilitate thoughtful policy making. State legislatures have chosen to deal with these questions in a variety of different ways.
As Washington’s liquor sales transfer from public to private hands, some state employees are making the same transition or moving to other public agencies before the June 1 deadline.
That early exodus could force some state stores to close ahead of schedule, as the Washington State Liquor Control Board struggles to find enough temporary workers to keep all of its 166 locations open.
Voters chose to privatize liquor distribution and sales by passing Initiative 1183 last November, meaning the state distribution center and stores will close by June 1. The Liquor Control Board estimates that more than 900 of its employees will lose their jobs.
Some are already finding employment elsewhere. Between Jan. 1 and mid-March, about 75 employees left the agency. One of those was Steve Burnell, who gave up his marketing position with the liquor board to take a job with a private distributor in February.
“Rather than wait it out, I wanted to move over to a new position,” Burnell said.
About 10 workers are leaving each week, said Clarice Nnanabu, human-resources director for the Liquor Control Board. The agency has been hiring temporary workers to fill the gaps, but as the June deadline approaches, that’s becoming more difficult.
“They find out it’s six or seven weeks, and they’re not interested,” Nnanabu said. “We’re not getting people who are willing to work for that short of time without benefits.”
Some former employees have come out of retirement to help in the interim, she said.
Liquor-board spokesman Brian Smith said it’s not unexpected that employees would leave before June.
“It’s only natural that they try and find work,” he said.
Smith said the agency discussed consolidating stores at a meeting last week but that specific locations had not yet been identified. He said he wasn’t sure when that information would be made public but said that employees at consolidated stores would be transferred to others.
Some stores could potentially close by the end of the month. It’s not a new idea — Smith said consolidating stores has been the contingency plan all along, should staffing become a problem.
Former state liquor workers are finding new jobs in the private sector and at other state agencies. Costco, which contributed more than $22 million to the initiative to create private liquor sales, is one of the companies interviewing state liquor employees.
“I think it’s all over the map. There are certainly quite a few folks who are staying, and quite a few folks who are going,” said Tom Geiger, spokesman for the union that represents more than 700 state liquor-store employees. “The real challenge is going to be, as many more hundreds of people are looking to be losing their jobs … what’s going to happen to them? And that’s just a big unknown.”
Burnell, who now leads a program for Youngs Market Co. to create express stores for retail clients, said three other former board employees have joined his team. He said employees looking to transfer to the private sector will have to be salespeople with strong customer-service skills, at least to be hired by his company.
For employees looking for another state position, some say it’s outside training that counts.
Katherine Beatty worked as a clerk at the downtown Olympia store for more than two years, before she started an office-assistant position with the Department of Labor and Industries in February. She said her prior office experience with state agencies — the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission and Department of Social and Health Services — helped her get the new job, and she worries about clerks without such additional training.
“I think those were really the only things that got me the job that I’m at now,” Beatty said.
Close to 100 area employers will participate in a regional job fair Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Elmira College’s Murray Athletic Center (the Domes), off Route 14 in Horseheads.
The event is being organized by several groups from Chemung and Steuben counties including the Chemung County Chamber of Commerce, Corning Community College, the state Department of Labor, Chemung-Schuyler-Steuben Workforce New York and Southern Tier Economic Growth.
Dan Porter, executive director of the Chemung-Schuyler-Steuben Workforce New York office in Corning, said representatives from local manufacturing firms, health care and human service providers, retail outlets and “one or two wineries” will be on-site.
“We’ve asked that every employer have job openings and not be just colleting resumes,” said Porter.
This year’s event will be the fifth one held. Each year, Porter said, the organizers have been pleasantly surprised by the number of employers taking part — even during the recent recession years.
“In the depth of the downturn, I think more were looking to gather resumes or hand-pick people. But we usually have a batch of employers to work with,” he said.
“Some years, we’ve had more manufacturers and other years, we’ve had more smaller businesses. But this year, we have a good mix.”
Schuyler County Transit will provide transportation for job seekers looking to meet one-on-one with employers and apply for open positions.
This service is for Schuyler County residents and round-trip fare is $8. Reservations are required and seating is limited.
Schuyler buses will make two runs from the Human Services Complex in Montour Falls to the Murray Center.
The first bus will leave the Human Services Complex at 10:40 a.m. and arrive at the job fair at 11 a.m. The second bus will leave the Human Services Complex at 1:30 p.m. and arrive at the job fair at 1:50 p.m.
For Chemung County residents, the Lake Road bus, Route No. 6, will leave the downtown transit center at 11 a.m., make its regular stops along the route, and arrive at the job fair by 11:30 a.m.
The return trip will leave the Murray Athletic Center at 2:30 p.m. Fares will not increase for the route deviation.
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