Joseph Choma of Altoona attended the Blair County PA CareerLink job fair Wednesday at the Jaffa Shrine to check out the construction and car repair employers represented there.

Despite being unemployed for eight months, Choma wasn’t planning to settle for just anything, being “a little bit picky.”

Choma can afford to be picky, because he has some savings, because he feels blessed by God — “the ultimate confidence booster” — and because we are in an employee’s market, with unemployment just 3.3% in Blair County, even as jobs are plentiful.

The existence of so many open jobs, coupled with reduced competition due to the low unemployment, gives people the opportunity to find something different than what they may have done previously, according to Labor & Industry Secretary Nancy Walker, who was at the event.

But the combination makes it challenging for employers and for the state Department of Labor & Industry, according to Walker, whose department’s mission includes ensuring that Pennsylvania companies have the means to be productive.

Job fairs like the one at the Jaffa are one of the ways to meet the challenge, according to Walker.

Many companies seek workers through “job boards” like Monster and Indeed, but often, when those employers are ready to make hires, the employees they pick are no longer available, because they’ve gotten a job elsewhere, Walker said.

Job fairs can eliminate time lapse that causes that problem because they pair employers who are ready to hire to fulfill specific needs with job seekers who are ready to work — with interviews that can take place immediately, followed by job offers and paychecks the following week, she said.

The state is also dealing with the low unemployment, plentiful jobs challenge by offering prospective workers supports to help them overcome barriers like transportation problems, daycare expenses and uncertain housing situations — barriers that surfaced with great frequency after COVID, when many people who’d gone on unemployment compensation with the shutdowns didn’t return to work, Walker said.

The state has also helped the situation within its own operations by abolishing via governor’s order the requirement for college degrees for most jobs, Walker said. The state has also launched a program by which young students are introduced to the wide range of careers available nowadays.

When she was young, her conception of work was mostly limited to what her parents or the parents of her friends did, she said.

Exposing young people to a broad palette of options will help make those options realistically available to them when they grow up, according to Walker.

She said it should also help better align individual aspirations with societal needs, given that the world may provide more ways for exercising one’s talents than what an individual tends to imagine initially.

Among professions in Pennsylvania today where there is a high need are teaching and nursing, she said.

Not done looking

Choma on Wednesday visited eight of the scores of tables set up in the Jaffa basement before talking to the Mirror without finding anything to his liking.

He spoke with representatives of six construction outfits, but all of them suggested he would be stuck with out-of-town work, which he said isn’t ideal because he doesn’t want to spend many hours each week on the road away from his family and because his car is unreliable.

He spoke with representatives of two car repair companies, but they expect their mechanics to have their own tools, which he doesn’t — and getting a full outfit would cost up to $10,000, even at a discount house, and he can’t afford that.

He wasn’t finished looking, though, he said.

He doesn’t want to settle for Walmart or McDonald’s, he said.

Always in the market

Scott Rhodes, human resources and safety director for Cove Shoe in Martinsburg, came to the fair to look for production laborers.

Several job seekers stopped at his table, expressed interest and picked up printed material, he said.

He directed them to his company’s factory, where they could fill out an application, perhaps get an on-the-spot interview and take a drug screen all in the same day — although the screening results can take from one to five days, he said.

Cove Shoe is almost always looking for production workers — two to five at any given time, Rhodes said.

Nowadays, many employers are competing for workers, he said.

He doesn’t see that changing much in the near future, given that many people recently have left the workforce, and many more will be leaving as the baby boomers retire, he said. The worker scarcity has been aggravated for companies like his by a general “shift away from manufacturing jobs” being deemed desirable.

Nevertheless, Rhodes said willing individuals can make “a solid career and living” in manufacturing.

For production jobs, his company offers a base rate of $12 an hour, with additional pay based on productivity, he said, adding that highly experienced individuals can earn up to about $25 an hour.

It’s possible that manufacturing jobs may become more appealing as a result of the increasing ratio between the cost of college versus the benefits that graduates realize from the degrees they earn, he said.

Cove Shoe has about 160 production employees, who are represented by the Universal Food and Commercial Workers Keystone State Local 1776, Rhodes said.

There are about 100 employees in sales, management and administration.

Employee’s market

Jesse Hertzler, talent acquisition specialist for Pyramid Healthcare, came to the fair looking to fill a wide variety of positions, from entry-level ones like behavioral technician, dietary worker, housekeeping employee and school aide to professional positions like counselor and nurse.

Hertzler has been coming routinely to the semi-annual fairs, which tend to generate almost 20 interviews each time.

Those interviews occur at one of the five Pyramid sites in Blair County, with about 40% of them leading to hires.

The biggest hiring blitz resulted in the fair held in fall 2022, post-COVID, he said.

Things have calmed down since then, but it’s still an employee’s market, Hertzler said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.