CareerSource responds to Sea Ray shutdown with job fair

Palm Coast Observer
Business

When Brunswick Corp. closed down operations at Sea Ray Boats, one of Palm Coast's largest private-sector employers, in June, nearly 440 people were left unemployed in Flagler County.

The business community has responded.

CareerSource Flagler Volusia scheduled a job fair on Friday, July 13. The event is hosted by Florida Technical Institute (where the job fair was initially slated to be held at), the Flagler County Department of Economic Opportunity and Flagler Schools. The job fair is taking place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the main gymnasium at Flagler Palm Coast High School.

Positions are available across a wide spectrum of fields, according to Jane Fifer, president and CEO of the Volusia Manufacturers Association, with the majority of the job openings in manufacturing.

"All the companies here have many, many job openings," she said.

Nicholas Michael and Josh Crafton, who worked at Sea Ray for about five years each, attended the job fair at FPC.

Crafton was appreciative of the effort to host the fair.

"They didn't have to do this," he said. "They went out of their way."

Michael said he had already applied to some of the same companies before the job fair, so he was able to make face-to-face contact with the decision makers and improve his chances of getting a new job.

Brian McMillan contributed to this report