The pace at most businesses eases off around year-end, but job-seekers can’t afford to take a holiday.
Ivan Riley, a 42-year-old Milwaukee man, has never been unemployed this time of year.
“Not to be working is really getting to me right now, not being in control of my family’s destination over the holidays,” says Riley, who has a wife and one teenage and two grown sons.
Riley is a broad-shouldered, soft-spoken man who’d like to find work in construction or maintenance.
“I’m willing to do anything right now, but I have goals,” Riley says. He’s in the basement of a church on the corner of 40th and Center streets, where Word of Hope Ministries Inc. just completed a 2½-hour session on filling out job applications and creating résumés. Because he didn’t have bus fare, Riley walked 33 blocks in a cold rain to seek job assistance from the program, which is affiliated with the Holy Cathedral Church of God in Christ.
“Just because it’s the holidays, you can’t take a two-week vacation,” says Terrence Evans, an employment specialist at Word of Hope. “Those people who are sitting back aren’t going to get the jobs.”
The next night, at the Brookfield Public Library, Ron Mulvaney sets up chocolate chip cookies and hot water with instant coffee for the weekly Dr. William Needler Job Forum, a free program for out-of-work professionals and managers.
“Folks, don’t lay low,” Mulvaney tells the dozen middle-aged men and women who turn out. “If you’re looking for a job, this is the best time of year to find one.”
The job forum meets every Wednesday, 50 weeks a year. It has done so – in good times and bad – since 1976. Mulvaney, who’s 71, is an unpaid volunteer who’s leading a fund-raising effort so the group can hire someone to replace him. On this night, he comes in to start the meeting, then leaves to be with his wife, who was hospitalized earlier in the week.
Less competition
“There’s a common misconception that employers don’t hire during the holidays,” Mulvaney begins. “I’m here to tell you … that’s the best time of year to get hired.”
Other employment experts agree. Among the reasons:
• There’s less competition as many job-seekers ease up during the holidays.
• Many organizations use the last weeks of the year to firm up budget and hiring plans for the new year and might have openings to fill.
• Hiring managers might not feel as inundated and can be more sympathetic to job hunters during the holiday season.
“A lot of companies want to get a head start on hiring,” says Cindy Lu, vice president and co-founder of Milwaukee-based Novo Recruiting Inc. Lu says many of her clients want to hit the ground running in 2005 fully staffed.
Statewide, the employment picture has improved this year, according to data released Thursday from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
On Tuesday, results from Manpower Inc.’s latest quarterly hiring survey suggest the start of 2005 will be the best employment market in four years.
On Wednesday, 100 job-seekers showed up at the north side office of the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership to put their names in for customized training programs that could lead them to careers ranging from nursing to computerized machining. The partnership is a collaboration of business, union, education and civic groups devoted to filling employer needs by developing workers and placing them in family-supporting jobs.
“We need to get a pool of people in that we can work with right after the start of the year,” Joe Nicosia, a staff leader for the training partnership, told 27 men and women crammed into a small training room.
Among the jobs anticipated are hundreds of construction positions connected with work on the Marquette Interchange, We Energies building projects and developments in the Menomonee Valley and Park East corridor.
Back in the church basement, Terrence Evans, the employment specialist, preaches the importance of consistency and persistence to 15 men and women who have come for job help.
So far this year, Word of Hope Ministries has helped 105 people land jobs, Evans says. But nobody got those people their jobs, he says, they had to get them themselves.
Email This Page!