WILLMAR - Area businesses, facing a critical labor shortage, are scrambling for workers as evidenced by the number of “help wanted’’ signs popping up along boulevards and the number of companies posting job fair announcements.
“I truly believe that anybody that wants a job has a job,’’ said Mary Warszynski, general manager of Employment Plus of Willmar. Warszynski and her six staff members help companies find the skilled or unskilled type of employees that those companies need.
“We do all the recruiting. We do all the prescreening. We work closely with the companies to find out what their actual need is, not only what kind of skills they are looking for background, but also the person who is best in their work environment,’’ Warszynski said.
In her 24 years with Employment plus, Warszynski said the worker shortage is probably the worst it’s ever been.
“We are continually looking for people to come in. Especially this time of year, a lot of our jobs are ag-related. There’s a company that we work with in Olivia and they need probably 85 people every single day for as long as their harvest runs,’’ Warszynski said.
“In order to keep that staff, we have to have about 200 applications, We take people that want to work part-time. We take people that just show up because we need to have those positions filled for that company every single day,’’ she said
“We invest more and more money in advertising and posters, social media, on our own personal pages, on our work pages, everywhere. You just have to continually recruit everywhere you go.’’
Entry level retail jobs start at about $10 an hour. Starting wages for office work, depending on skill level, start at about $12 an hour. Manufacturing companies looking for skilled workers probably pay more.
“They will pay a little bit more, and people can improve themselves if they have the work ethic and the drive. They can usually move up within a couple of years. There’s a lot to be said for finding a good worker,’’ she said.
Some companies are even holding their own job fairs. Warszynski planned a Saturday morning job fair for a company in Litchfield and anyone interested in working for the company would be interviewed right on the spot.
“They need about 12 employees right now. Most of the positions are good, long-term positions that they will train you to do the job, even like machine operation,’’ Warszynski said. “In manufacturing, everybody’s always short of welders and everybody’s always short of industrial painters as well. So if they have some transferrable skill, then that makes them a good candidate for that company.’’
Warszynski is part of a group of businesses that are talking with educators to help identify students - even in the junior high level - who would be a good fit for skilled labor-type jobs.
“I can place welders that just got out of high school because the company will take them the rest of the way because there isn’t anybody else,’’ Warszynski said.
“We need to make it cool that somebody likes to work with wood. It’s cool to be a welder. You can do all kinds of things. They will have a very good life. There are skilled people that make a lot of money. You still have to work, of course. But those opportunities need to be cool.’’
