Cynthia Oliver faced two options when she arrived at the Anderson Boys & Girls Club at 9:30 a.m. Friday: get a full-time job or leave the city again.
Oliver, of Gary, wasn’t expecting the former to happen on the spot, but she’ll start at Chicago-based industrial furniture manufacturer Edsal Manufacturing Co. Inc.’s Gary expansion at 7 a.m. May 25. Not bad for a two-hour wait in line.
“I’m actually ecstatic,” Oliver said. “I was looking for more security here, and I heard a new plant was coming. But I was thinking about leaving Gary. It was really on my mind.”
Oliver, who has a part-time job already, will keep that job while working for Edsal and finishing school, she said. She, and many of the 2,000 people who waited in line from 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, embodies the type of employee Edsal brass was hoping it would find at Friday’s job fair.
“The intent was to come in and hire 40 to 50 people to start operations on (May 18), and they got their start dates today,” Edsal Operations Director Dave Wojtowicz said. “But because of the city’s willingness to work with us and the organizations who helped with bringing potential employees here today, we’ll be able to start our next wave of people at the end of May and the start of June, and be able to reach our goal of 200 to 300 employees by July.”
Other people who don’t receive start dates shouldn’t despair; their applications will be put in a database to fill more spots as the company grows, Wojtowicz said.
The jobs for which people were hired Friday were entry level and start at minimum wage, Wojtowicz said. Once they’ve started at the 700 W. Chase St. plant, however, their skills will be assessed, and people who want to move into different positions will get the opportunity.
“Some people want to stay doing the same thing for 20 years, and that’s OK,” Wojtowicz told applicant Ashley Herrin, who also was hired. “But we have positions in customer service, shipping, inventory and leadership, so there’s opportunity to grow.”
Edsal, which also has plants in California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and China, said expanding to Gary was based on economic development and proximity to its Chicago headquarters, Wojtowicz said. Incentives were icing on the cake: the city is finalizing real estate and personal property abatements for the company, but it won’t receive a property-tax abatement, at least for the time being.
“The support the city has given us has been excellent,” he said. “They assured us we’d be able to tap into the market here, and we’re now able to fasttrack people and create a resource.”
In a city whose unemployment rate in March Bureau of Labor Statistics figures was more than four times the state average — 25.3 percent compared with 5.8 statewide — hearing that people were getting hired encouraged Tyrone Lyons from his spot near the end of the line that had stretched around the club.
“I was interested to see what they had, and I’m working part-time, so I need the employment,” the Gary resident said. “This helps me with the outlook on the city. I come from Detroit, and I don’t want to be in an area lacking in resources when I can go back there.”
Tikey Gee, also of Gary, said he and many young people don’t think the job fair is enough.
“Look at all the people here — they’re older. The young people here don’t have the skills to get these jobs,” Gee said. “We’re doing it out here out of our heart and God, but the city isn’t doing anything for us.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter.