As the country appears to see a slowdown to the so-called “Great Resignation” – in which employees quit their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – local companies in need of employees turned out for Thursday’s second annual Ceres Job Fair at the Ceres Community Center.
Approximately 40 companies had tables at the event, which ran from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Hosting the event was the city of Ceres, the Ceres Chamber of Commerce and the state Employment Development Department (EDD), the latter of which put out the word to companies to attend. The city of Ceres also invited a list of companies which are hiring.
Those who dispatched representatives and offered flyers with available job openings included Bronco Winery, Foster Farms, First Student, West-Mark Trucks and Trailers, Allied Universal, VBC Bottling Company, California Dairies, Hilmar Cheese Company, FedEx, California Natural Products, Tiger Lines, Dottie’s Quality In-Home Care, DeHart Technical School and Turtle-y Awesome Travel.
Even though she helped organized the event, Chamber president Brandy Meyer sought instructors for her company, Meyer CPR & First Aid. Her Fourth Street business not only trains about 1,100 persons annually in CPR and first aid techniques but also about blood work pathogens, child care, water safety and wilderness first aid – mostly onsite at her office. She also trains at businesses and offers maintenance on Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs).
“I need instructors because after COVID it’s only me and two part-time girls,” said Meyer. “There’s other things we can do, like there’s something called an AVERT (Active Violence Training) training … but I can’t do that like because I don’t have the time because I’m too busy teaching. So I want to get away from the teaching part and hire instructors to teach and I can build the business. We’re also looking at opening up an office in Fresno.”
Persons of all ages came in search of work. Meyer said that at last year’s event her daughter’s boyfriend landed a job at West-Mark’s table.
To assist in facilitating interviews on the spot, a private room was made available just outside the main assembly room.
“We try to make it as easy as possible to connect employers with employees,” said Meyer.
DOT Foods, which has its westernmost warehouse in the country just outside the Ceres city limits, advertised jobs for truckers, warehouse worker, garage diesel technician and part-time parcel handler.
“We get plenty of applications, it’s just about finding the right person,” said Larry Baca of DOT Foods. “A lot of people flooded the industry seeing kind of a lot of dollar signs on what truck drivers can do but they’re not really prepared to immense themselves in the lifestyle … being out over the road for multiple days at a time or even spending the night in the truck.”
A support system at home is essential, he added.
Sergio Morales explained how lots of DOT applicants want one of the 200 warehouse jobs but many are not qualified, have been out of the workforce for a long time or don’t have much experience. He said while DOT offers training, when people find out that half of their time is spent in a refrigerated workplace and half on the dry side, they opt out.
“They don’t like being in the freezer for some reason,” joked Morales.
Another challenge is finding folks who don’t mind working the night shift.
Baca said being at job fairs also allows the middle man company to get its brand publicized since its brand isn’t on stores or on products in those stores.
“We’re not well known in the community,” said Baca. “We’re a nationwide company. We don’t have a ton of employees at our (Modesto) facility.
“People see DOT Foods and don’t recognize the brand,” said Morales. “They don’t know what they’re applying for or what they’re looking at and we start telling them it’s warehousing or truck driving and they’re like, ‘Ok, I can do that.’”
A flyer indicated that DOT warehouse workers make between $21.75 and $26.10 an hour with the night shift paying an extra $1. Starting pay for truck drivers is $92,000 a year.
Conagra had two representatives at the event to find workers for its Oakdale plant, formerly Hunt’s. Those jobs include cannery line worker, sanitation worker, forklift operator and truck driver. The cannery employees about 900 workers at peak summer season and 700 in off-season to produce its Manwich brand of Sloppy Joes, Rotel tomatoes, Rosarita brand beans, ketchup and some other tomato products.
“Last year we were short-staffed so a lot of people were working seven days, 12 hours and we want to give them some time off, some time to relax,” said Adrian Velasquez of Conagra.
“We have lots of work,” added Anna Parra. “In reality we just need people that are willing to show up. That’s the number one reason people get terms.”
The two had expressed confusion over how so many people are able to pay their bills and not work.
“How do they pay their bills?” asked Parra. “There’s more jobs now post COVID that are not filled than there were pre-COVID. It’s insane.”
The Oakdale plant primarily cans tomatoes and tomato sauce and paste but other Conagra plants produce Slim Jim beef jerky products, Chef Boyardee raviolis and spaghetti and Duncan Hines cake mixes.
One obstacle in hiring is cannery work is seasonal and winds down production at the end of October.
“They find out it’s seasonal work and don’t want to stay, they want something full-time,” said Velazquez.
“It’s also union so some of those people are just waiting to chill for a little bit until other people fall off and they get to move up the ladder on seniority,” said Parra.
The Ceres Police Officers Association was on hand in hopes of interesting someone to become patrol officers.
Sgt. Jeffrey Godfrey said the department is continually seeking to staff the sworn officer positions with officers leaving for other agencies, becoming injured or terminated.
“There’s plenty of people who want to be cops,” said Godfrey, “but there’s not plenty of people who want to be cops and have the capability, not just intellectually but to pass the background (check). There’s a lot of people out there with baggage and they can’t pass the background.”
Past drug use, prior convictions and psychological issues can all wash out a candidate. Lying about a past problem can cause a candidate to fail a polygraph test when disclosing certain issues may not be necessarily disqualify a candidate than will fabricating the truth.
A change in state law also makes it harder to find quality officers, Godfrey said. SB 2, which took effect Jan. 1, means an officer’s POST (Peace Officers Standards and Training) certification issued by a police academy no longer goes with an officer and can be revoked if in violation of guidelines.
“It’s 2023, there’s a lot of things now that are ‘acceptable’ that used to be unacceptable. You know, 24 years ago when I started if I would have said I smoked pot it would have been over. But now it’s legal.”
For the record, Godfrey hasn’t ever smoked weed and only used that as an example. He also added that officers are supposed to stop marijuana use once they are in law enforcement.
On the table in front of Godfrey and Officer Aaron Pinon were flyers showing the salaries for police dispatchers and officers. Salary of a Ceres Police dispatcher ranges from $3,708 to $4,976 per month on top of excellent medical and dental benefits.
Pay for a Ceres Police officer ranges from $6,146 per month to $7,842 per month.
Also on hand promoting its programs was Ceres Adult School. Jesus Oliveras said that Ceres Unified School District offers training for adults this fall to get jobs both inside and outside the district. Most of the classes are free at Walt Hanline Elementary School campus, such as school bus driver training, school office management, computers, a culinary classes as well as a Paraprofessional Boot Camp. Introduction to welding classes are offered at Central Valley High School. An Emergency Medical Training (EMT) certificate class has a cost of $800.
“It’s a good way to get a foot in the door and then look for what the district offers,” said Oliveras. “Since they’re the ones teaching you know what they’re looking for, what the requirements are.”
