By Mike Anderson
If you are looking for a full-time job, the Georgina Job Fair is a great place to start.
On September 15, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., the Georgina Job Fair at the Link in Sutton will host over a dozen local employers, including Buchner Manufacturing, the Town of Georgina, and RHS Health Care Service.
The job fair also offers career advice from specialists in employment, training, education and career development. And there’s free resume coaching and childcare available on-site through Jericho Youth Services.
“We’re expecting about 100 people, and we hope to have close to 30 employers registered,” said Anthony DiGiovanni, a Community Support Worker with Routes Connecting Communities, which is sponsoring the job fair along with the Town of Georgina, Georgina Chamber of Commerce and Georgina Community Action Table (Georgina CAT).
“All the employers have openings, and they’re looking for people to hire. So people will have the opportunity to go to the various booths and speak with the representatives to see if those jobs are a fit for them.”
“We also have a one-on-one resume prep station, hosted by Job Skills and the Town of Georgina, and printing and copying services. So if people need to make additional copies of their resume to hand them to multiple employers, they can do so.”
According to DiGiovanni, most of the jobs pay above minimum wage, starting at $17 an hour.
“We were mostly looking for jobs over minimum wage,” he said. “However, some employers, like Canadian Tire, have minimum wage jobs, but we invited them because they also offer good career paths. If you start as a stock person, there’s a possibility you could move up in that company into sales, HR or something else.”
DiGiovanni says the job fair will help local employers facing labour shortages caused by the pandemic.
“Studies show people who worked remotely during the pandemic and had to go back are finding another remote job. There’s also people who went on unemployment or decided to retire early; they are no longer in the labour force,” he said. “A lot of employers need to hire to replace those workers.”
DiGiovanni also says that the job fair also raises the profile of local employers with job seekers.
“We found that 75 per cent of residents are travelling outside Georgina for work,” he said.
“While we have some registered employers from outside Georgina, most are local. Because we want to focus on having residents work in Georgina.”
The job fair is the brainchild of Georgina CAT’s Employment and Income Generation Working Group, tasked with improving employment opportunities in Sutton and Pefferlaw, which it classifies as Northern Georgina.
DiGiovanni says the working group identified the need for a job fair because none were planned for Northern Georgina this year — York Region District School Board (YRDSB) closed its Yorkworks Employment Services agency in Sutton last year.
“Definitely, there is a gap, so we wanted to fill that. The focus of the Georgina CAT is on employment and income generation, whether it is a job fair or something else,” said DiGiovanni, who believes steady employment also promotes mental wellbeing, another goal of Georgina CAT.
“Employment and mental wellbeing correlate; people with mental health issues may have a lot of stress in their life because they don’t have a job and don’t have income. So if we can help one side of the equation, we can help the other,” he said.
DiGiovanni hopes the Georgina Job Fair will become an annual event, but he admits it will depend on continued funding from the Region. For more information, call (905) 722-4616.
