Delta College held a job fair Thursday afternoon hoping to reach students and other young people across thew Saginaw Bay Region. It comes as the job market appears increasingly difficult for young people.
Roughly 5% of recent college graduates were unemployed as of last December, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, while 7.8% of young workers (ages 22-28) were unemployed.
While those rates are down significantly from the pandemic, they’re still above the national unemployment rate of around 4%.
Hundreds of students and members of the public attended the fair, filing into the Delta College gym with applications in hand.
Gavin Hoy is an 18-year-old from Sebewaing. He was laid off from Michigan Sugar Company last month because of a drought during beet season.
“Once the beats ran out, there was nothing left for us to do, so they laid off everyone that had to do with beets,” he said.
Hoy has been out of consistent work for almost a year. He says finding a job has been difficult.
“The logistics of transportation, especially in the thumb, with it being mostly fields, it's hard to get around,” he said. “Definitely makes it very difficult, especially when the work market is so, well, bad at the moment.”
Amanda Jones is with Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation at Covenant Healthcare. They had a booth at the event.
She says, healthcare demand is up, and they're hearing from new medical school graduates.
"A lot of times more towards the graduation dates like May and December are our highest upticks of them,” she said. “They tend to see a lot more of new grads than people that are veterans within their current role."
The healthcare sector accounted for 121% of the job growth in the U.S. economy last year.
“We have a lot more clients and a lot more home health aides interested in home health care,” said Kelsey McMillon of Helping Hand Nursing Services, a home healthcare company based in Saginaw and Grand Blanc. “At the end of the day it is good job security we're always going to be here, health care is never going to go away.”
Employers at the job fair included Corning, Hemlock, Nexteer Automotive, Midland Public Schools, the U.S. Army and various local law enforcement agencies.
As for what employers are looking for, Jones said Mary Free Bed was looking someone “who was willing to work hard,” show up on time, and be willing to learn.
