A slight breeze played havoc with the cardboard trifold display showing his company’s products that John Marks was trying to keep upright.
Marks, president of Alpha Products, a metal forming company based in Bedford Park whose products include parts for audio speakers and architectural ornamentation, was hoping a job fair in Park Forest might draw job seekers.
“We can do anything to metal,” said Marks, a part-owner of the business founded in 1946. “Our business is thriving and we need help.”
He said the company has 55 employees but, in order to meet demand, they need to be closer to 70. Getting to that number has been a challenge.
Alpha Products and a number of other companies took part in the open-air job fair, with employers setting up booths under tents Thursday in downtown Park Forest.
Some said it has been a challenge to get people to sign up for what can be high-paying jobs, even offering training if applicants don’t have the necessary skills.
With the local and national economies coming out of a COVID-19 slump that saw many people furloughed or jobless, south and southwest suburban employers say they are encountering headwinds in filling job openings.
“It’s not even so much a skills thing,” said Rachael McCain, who works in human relations at ITW Deltar in Frankfort, noting the company offers training to new hires. “It’s hard to find people.”
Some employers in Illinois and across the nation claim enhanced jobless benefits offered during the pandemic have made it more lucrative to collect benefits than actually seek out work.
The $300 weekly enhancement under the federal COVID-19 jobless benefits legislation, paid to virtually all unemployment recipients in Illinois, is due to lapse in early September.
Statewide organizations representing Illinois’ retailers, manufacturers, hotel operators and other businesses, in a July 13 letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, asked him to reinstate the traditional jobless benefits and require that those out of work look for jobs, saying the enhanced insurance benefits are hurting their ability to attract workers.
“I’m sure that is a big part of it,” McCain said.
That she and representatives from other companies were gathered under large tents for a face-to-face job fair was a bit different, considering the COVID-19 pandemic had, for more than a year, meant only virtual hiring events.
McCain started with the global company, a Fortune 200 company first established as Illinois Tool Works, in December 2019, and said Thursday’s event was her first in-person hiring opportunity.
“All I have known is the pandemic,” McCain said.
Niyah Hall, a staffing coordinator with Amazon, said she has been with the company 11/2 years and it was also refreshing to see prospective employees.
“With the face-to-face you are establishing a connection with people, letting them know Amazon has a face,” she said.
With several distribution centers already in the Chicago area, and preparing to open in Markham, Matteson and University Park, Hall said her company had beefed up its starting wage for warehouse workers to $15.50 an hour.
At the table next to her, Vicki Biegel had an assortment of food products including Pepperidge Farm crackers and Thomas’ bagels.
Her University Park company, Avatar Corp., makes products for the food, drug and personal care industries, including “release agents” that ensure that baked products such as bagels and crackers emerge whole.
Biegel, who works in human resources, said her 50-employee company deals with staffing companies and offers temporary jobs that can become permanent, but the staffing companies report they are having trouble finding applicants.
She said that Avatar offers competitive wages, but that “we need to up the ante to compete with the Amazons of the world.”
Marks said this company and other manufacturers are competing for a limited pool of qualified workers, with a desperate need for those experienced in tool and die skills which he called “an art that has aged” with fewer younger people coming into the trade.
“It’s a difficult time to be in any business,” he said. “We are all competing against each other.”
The Illinois Department of Employment Security reports statewide unemployment inched up in June to 7.2% from 7.1% in May, although employers in areas such as leisure and hospitality, which includes a range of businesses including restaurants, bars and hotels, reported job gains.
In June, nonfarm payroll jobs statewide were up 12,500 compared with May, according to the state employment department. Payroll figures from May compared with April were revised from a loss of 7,900 to a gain of 4,300, according to the department.
In the leisure and hospitality sector, jobs were up 10,700 compared with May, while jobs in trade, transportation and utilities were up 3,400 in June from May, according to the department.
Compared with June of last year, when COVID-19 restrictions were still fully in place, job gains in leisure and hospitality were up nearly 119,000 last month, while employment in trade, transportation and utilities was up 61,600 year over year.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, the unemployment rate in June, not seasonally adjusted, was 9.2% in June compared with 7.9% in May and 15.7% in June 2020, according to the state.
Last month, compared with a year earlier, nonfarm payroll jobs in the metro area were up 181,600, with the leisure-hospitality sector recording the biggest gain, adding 71,500 jobs.
Anfernee Morris, 24, of Blue Island, said he hopes to move into that plus column.
He was at the hiring event, talking with employers and filling out applications, and said he had been “just hunting around” for work the last few weeks.
Morris said he had put in at least 10 job applications in the past week, although he plans to move to Carol Stream and hoped to find a job near there, such as at a south suburban firm that also had operations in the west suburbs.
The event was sponsored by a number of organizations, including the Chicago Southland Economic Development Corp. For businesses that did not physically attend, screeners were taking applications.
Reggie Greenwood, the economic development corporation’s executive director, said holding the hiring event during the middle of the day likely limited job seekers to those who are unemployed. He had hoped people who were looking for a career change might also be interested.
“These are career jobs” firms were offering, Greenwood said. “How do we encourage people to apply? We have world-class companies in our area all needing people.”
Greenwood is also director of the Supply Chain Innovation Center and Business Incubator at Governors State University in University Park
Greenwood said he doesn’t have a handle on why employers are having trouble filling job openings. He said he is aware of “at least 30 and probably closer to 40? businesses that have positions to fill.
“It is so important to the health of our region to make this succeed,” he said.
mnolan@tribpub.com
