Businesses across the state are having to reduce staff or close altogether as the economic impact of COVID-19 deepens, but there are some sectors looking to hire.
Many supermarket chains across the commonwealth have websites advertising openings for various positions to help with increased consumer demand for groceries to keep home pantries stocked. These include Big Y, Stop & Shop and Geissler’s.
C&S Wholesale Grocers, the largest privately held wholesale grocery supply company in the country, has a number of positions open in Massachusetts, as well as other parts of New England, including in transportation and merchandising in North Hatfield, according to its website.
Boston Market is among those in the food industry said to be looking for delivery drivers while restaurants are banned from serving dine-in customers under current state regulations.
Amazon recently announced it has more than 100,000 full- and part-time fulfillment and delivery positions open in the U.S., including 1,400 in Massachusetts.
CVS, according to its website, has a variety of positions available in a number of its locations in Massachusetts, as does Walgreens, which is looking to hire pharmacy technicians.
Health care workers are in increased demand. Many hospital systems, like Baystate Health, have pages on their websites to facilitate reviewing openings within their system.
The state has its own job opportunities website. Postings range from a need for an epidemiologist for the Department of Public Health in Boston to a radio maintenance technician for the state police in Northampton.
MassMutual has a webpage to search jobs, including call service specialist, at the financial services company.
Information for anyone looking to file for unemployment while they look for other work can be found on the MassHire Springfield Career Center website or the state unemployment webpage.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said it received nearly 20,000 unemployment claims Monday alone. That’s more than it received during the entire month of February.
For the week ending March 14, Massachusetts had 7,408 new unemployment claims, up from 4,712 new claims in the same week of last year.
The hotel industry has been particularly hard hit. In Massachusetts alone, where the first COVID-19 case was announced on Feb. 1, 17,847 direct hotel-related jobs and 66,799 jobs that support hotels have been cut due to the outbreak, according to the Massachusetts Lodging Association. The association compiled first-hand accounts from nine hotel owners in the state to submit to Congress urging aid for an industry facing significant strain.
Nationally, the number of new jobless claims rose by more than 70,000 the week ending March 14, before many of the business shutdowns now racking the economy occurred.
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
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