Job fair sees turnout of 90

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Michael Cleveland photo This sign outside of Wilton Town Hall announced the job fair being held last week. Ninety seekers of employment attended.

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WILTON – After 30 years in the staffing services industry, there isn’t much Becky Henderson hasn’t seen.

“This is my third recession,” she said Friday as she prepared for a job fair at Wilton Town Hall.

Henderson, a senior account manager with CoWorx Staff Services, of Nashua, was preparing for what she hoped would be an influx of job seekers to catch on with New Hampshire Ball Bearings in Peterborough, a firm that manufactures precision bearings and assemblies for the aerospace, defense, medical, dental and high-technology markets. The company, with three manufacturing facilities in the U.S., employs more than 1,400 people, according to the company’s Web site.

Henderson said the local firm has between 50 and 60 job openings, positions in the second and third shifts that CoWorx was helping NHBB staff.

The job fair in Wilton was CoWorx’s third for NHBB, following fairs in Keene and Peterborough. At the latter, Henderson said, 90 people filled out applications.

“It was very successful, and we are recommending quite a few people for the next step,” Henderson said Monday in an e-mail to The Cabinet.

One of those hoping to catch on with NHBB was Patrice Noel, of Wilton. The former Nashua resident has been out of work since May 2010, when, shortly after finishing her college degree in business and accounting while on the job, she was laid off by Teledyne, of Hudson, where she had been an accountant.

Things have been tough since then, she said: Her unemployment has run out, her husband is unemployed, and they now are renting in Wilton after losing their home in Nashua.

“It’s been tough,” she said after she’d filled out her NHBB application. “We’ve been depending on assistance” from Wilton and from Southern New Hampshire Services, she said.

All she was hoping for last week was a decent job, and even if she wasn’t right for a position at New Hampshire Ball Bearings, she believed applying through CoWorx might help her in the future.

“This agency will also look at other jobs,” she said. “Sometimes, if you get your foot in the door, something else might come up.”

Although she’s out of work, Noel isn’t idle: She makes jewelry and is a member of and volunteer for the Monadnock Crafters Guild in Peterborough. That keeps her busy creative but doesn’t take care of things like health insurance.

“That’s what we need – benefits,” she said, “That’s big.”

On the day of the job fair in Wilton, The New York Times reported that the U.S. added a robust 200,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said, in a sign that the economic recovery was gaining momentum.

That might be good news in the long run, something that Henderson acknowledged, but for people out of work right now, it’s the short run that counts, and that is why they flocked to the job fair. Indeed, although it wasn’t scheduled to begin until 10 a.m., the first client came through the door and began filling out an application at 9:45. The three CoWorx staffers on the scene didn’t mind an early bird: They handed him a pen, showed him to a seat and got him started.

The first step was filling out a paper application. That was reviewed by one of the CoWorx staffers and, if the candidate appeared to be a good fit for NHBB’s needs, it was followed by an online application. Eventually, all of this would lead to one or more interviews with NHBB and perhaps a job.

“Compared to this time last year, we’re a lot busier,” Henderson said when asked about the current job climate.

When they held a recent job fair in Peterborough, 90 people attended.

In Wilton, 90 also came out.

“Some of them were really good, qualified candidates” for NHBB,” Henderson said. “Others? They need a job, they just apply, and they’re not remotely qualified. But you can’t blame them for trying, that’s for sure.”

And it’s not a waste of time: CoWorx keeps their applications on file in case they meet a future need.

Henderson is hopeful that those future needs will arise this year.

“It’s going to be better,” said the optimist. “I always keep my cup half-full.”