With an unemployment rate just under 9%, Lackawanna County is among the worst in the state when it comes to people out of work.
So, county officials have set up a job fair scheduled for Thursday. It aims to line up those thousands of people out of work with thousands of available jobs.
Thousands of shirts and pants fly through the cleaning warehouse at Dempsey Uniform & Linen in Jessup. Those shirts will go on the backs of the employed, but Dempsey is hoping those still looking for work will want to sport its uniform.
Employees at Dempsey are prepping for Lackawanna County's first job fair in quite some time, and it might be the biggest yet.
Dempsey hopes to hire 6 people immediately and maybe more in the future.
"We've been hiring for a while, and it's not so easy to find passive candidates who might not be aware that we're hiring. So, this gives us an opportunity to get out in front of people. Plus, with the economy locally, people have been struggling to find employment. So, the more we can get the word out about our growth and our opportunity the better," said Human Resources Director Cindy Scovish.
Lackawanna County officials have lined up more than 60 employers who will be looking to fill about 1,700 jobs. They just hope the thousands of people out of work in our area show up to apply.
On Thursday, those employers will fill PNC Field in Moosic for the county's job fair.
Not far from the baseball field, folks with Montage Mountain said they have a big task ahead. Admiral Management, the company that runs Montage along with some apartment buildings in Scranton, is looking to hire 500 people.
"It is a challenge to come up with this many people in such a short amount of time, six months when you're talking about 500 to 600 jobs is not a lot of time, there's a lot of paperwork to do, and a lot of interviews that have to happen between now and the winter," said Jessica Kalinoski of Admiral Management.
Besides seasonal winter jobs on the mountain, Kalinoski said Admiral has plenty of full-time management and accounting jobs to fill. She hopes the job fair will help her find candidates that haven't crossed her desk before.
"That's why we're getting started early and Lackawanna County having this job fair is exactly what we needed," Kalinoski added.
The Lackawanna County Job Fair will be held Thursday from 1:00pm to 6:00pm at PNC Field in Moosic.