- May 5, 2024
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When Marianne Sturgeon, 49, lost her job as a secretary back in March, it didn’t affect her employment status alone.
“We’re on a very fixed income, and I’m only working 15 hours a week,” her husband Robert, 51, said. “My wife just lost her job. Now, I’m looking for the income boost.”
The Palm Coast couple spent Thursday afternoon searching for prospects at the Flagler County Job Fair. The event, put on by the Flagler County Department of Economic Opportunity, featured 36 companies hiring for about 179 openings and a potential 496 positions. It was the latest effort to address the county's 8.3% unemployment rate.
Some job seekers poured in from outside the county to see Flagler’s offerings. Joedeci Shelton, 21, heard about the event on Facebook and made the 30-plus mile drive from Seville. After unfulfilling stints in the Army and working at Wal-Mart, he’s eyeing a gig that’ll provide him with skills for a rewarding career.
“I’m looking for a job that’ll help me to learn as I work,” Shelton said. “Something that can teach me other skills while benefitting me (financially). An electrician, something with customer service, anything that will help me learn — and lead to another job, then another job on my way up.”
Jason Connolly, 42, has already worked in the field of manufacturing engineering. He’s doing well as a consultant but came to Thursday’s fair entertaining thoughts of rejoining the nine to five crowd.
“I came mostly to see what the area has to offer,” he said. “I was very excited to talk to Aveo Engineering here and see what else is here.”
What did he find?
“Not a lot,” Connolly said.
Recruiters who attended were just as varied as the job seekers courting them. Spherion, a locally-owned, national staffing and temp agency chain, wants to tap into Palm Coast’s work force.
“We want to connect with people living in Palm Coast and Flagler County,” branch manager Danielle Silva said. “The positions we have are in Flagler, St. John’s County, and Volusia County. We’re looking for experience, reliability and dependability; the willingness to work and go to work — even if it’s only on a temporary basis.”
Christian Gather, general manager for Aveo Engineering, is willing to cultivate employees with little prior experience. He values intangibles over traditional resume-padders.
“Up here and in here,” he said, pointing to his head and then his heart. “That’s it. I don’t look for anybody with a college degree. I do entry level (hiring) all the way up to college-degree personnel. I’m willing to train people from the lowest on the totem pole all the way up to my engineers. It’s the whole gamut.”
Robert Sturgeon made a point of disseminating his resume to as many booths as possible. Right now, he’s working as a caregiver with Helping Hands of Flagler County, but his real passion is data entry. He can type 64 words per minute, he noted, with 99% accuracy.
While a couple of companies told Sturgeon they’d take a closer look at his credentials, none of the positions mentioned fell directly in his field.
Marianne isn’t being as picky; she hopes to find clerical, secretarial, or office assistant work immediately. Her job search has been more of a drag-out affair this time around, compared to an experience a couple decades earlier.
“It just seems much harder now,” she said. “When I lived up in New Jersey and was looking for a job, it just seemed like I was hired almost immediately. Here, it’s taking months and months.”
