Contractors, trade unions, and others had plenty of interest from about 200 job seekers at Wednesday's job fair aimed at recruiting workers for the I-81 project in Syracuse. Marie Weiss is council representative with Carpenters Union Local 277.
“I actually had to ask for more flyers to be printed, even from what I brought," Weiss said. "So it was a great turn out. I had a lot of great apprentice applicants or potential applicants. A lot of great questions, a lot of people really interested in in knowing more about the whole process and the kind of work that we do.”
Andy Schmitz is with the marketing department at Prudent Engineering, which does bridge and highway construction management and inspection.
“All my business cards are gone and all of my informational folders are gone, so I've been left to my own devices as far as explaining things," Schmitz said. "But I think it's been very beneficial day.”
One of the applicants, Jimmy Lockwood, has held a variety of construction jobs. He helped install the new roof on the JMA Dome, and worked at Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant. Now he’s looking for his next job.
“I just hope everything works on my favor, honestly," Lockwood said. "I have carpenter experience, so I don't think carpenter experience going to work with, like concrete and all that. But I'm willing to do whatever. I'm just trying to work, honestly.”
Deka Dancil with the Urban Jobs Task Force says job fairs like this are one of the best ways to connect applicants with contractors and ultimately jobs.
“It's going to take some intentionality on our part for people to be able to fill these jobs," Dancil said. People have a lot of barriers to employment. This is not an industry that many have been exposed to. It's also an industry that folks have been excluded from. So, a part of it is bringing the information to them and tying the community to these jobs."
Dancil acknowledges the process can get complicated for applicants who need training. But, she says contractors know the next steps.
"I'm going to send you to the appropriate trade union to see if they have space for you to become an apprentice there, or they may tell you about other training programs that are pre apprenticeship programs," Dancil said. "So the contractors themselves are not doing the training, but they are connecting people to the training.”
In addition to job fairs, Marie Weiss with the carpenters union says they’re trying to reach out early by visiting schools.
“We've probably done three times the classroom visits that we have done previously," Weiss said. "So just in terms of getting the high school students, and even we do presentations even younger than that. So just to let them know that it's going to be coming up between this project and between Micron, there's going to be a lot of work in the area.”
The state DOT is seeking workers who live in disadvantaged zip codes to meet a required 15 percent threshold for local hires. I-81 project spokesperson TeNesha Murphy says it’s going well.
“Right now with contract one that's in the Cicero area, about 13 percent of that workforce is local hire and then over in the Valley area in Syracuse where we're working, that ranges anywhere from 19 to 21 percent of local hire. So you know based off of the numbers, we're doing a great job.”
Murphy hopes for the same results on contract three near the Inner Harbor, and the final contracts for the viaduct removal and community grid replacement. If you missed the recent job fair, visit the DOT’s outreach centers at Tucker Missionary Baptist Church or the Hills Building downtown.
