Thousands of jobs are available
Staffing agency hosts walk-in interviews Friday
Seeking to fill about 12,000 jobs in Wisconsin and four other states, a Brookfield-based staffing agency is conducting walk-in interviews Friday.
Many of the jobs are in manufacturing, said QPS Employment Group, which represents about 1,300 employers in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri.
The 12,000 positions include assembly work, clerical and professional occupations. The number of job openings is up more than 9% from a year ago, according to QPS, which has 48 offices in the five states.
“I would say about 85% to 90% of our positions currently are in the manufacturing realm,” said Kelly Ramirez, regional vice president for the firm.
Light assembly, warehouse work, packaging, food manufacturing and metalwork are some of the job descriptions.
“It has been fairly consistent,” Ramirez said.
Even as the overall number of U.S. manufacturing jobs has fallen in recent years, and some companies have laid off hundreds of people, others say
they’re having difficulty filling openings.
A quick search of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s website (https://jobcenterofwisconsin.com) Tuesday showed there were 6,035 job postings for production workers in the state, including 2,394 in northeast counties and 1,908 in the southeast counties.
“We are encouraging people to come and apply with us even if they don’t have a manufacturing background,” Ramirez said.
Winco Stamping, of Menomonee Falls, said it recently added a second work shift for the first time in 69 years.
“We are hiring on all levels at this point,” said Winco President and CEO Scott Wendelburg.
“It’s not easy. I will be honest with you,” he said.
The metal-stamping company, with 75 employees, has a starting wage of between $10 and $11 per hour for press operators.
And that’s with no experience.
“You can be operating a press here today and have been bagging groceries yesterday,” Wendelburg said.
Wendelburg said he’s focused on hiring people with a strong work ethic.
“We hire on culture, and we can train the skill. And even after only six months, if you have demonstrated that you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and work hard, there certainly are advancement opportunities,” he said.
Manufacturing jobs still support many families, but a lot of people laid off in the middle of their career have struggled to find work that pays even half of what they previously earned.
“There’s a question of what’s a livable wage,” said Phil Neuenfeldt,
president of the labor organization Wisconsin AFL-CIO.
Years of not investing in worker training and technical education have taken a toll on the workforce and employers, according to Neuenfeldt.
“And if we are stuck in a low-wage strategy,” there are always going to be companies clamoring for help, he said.
QPS said its hiring event Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at each of the company’s offices, is open to adults interested in the jobs. In the Milwaukee area, the company has offices in West Allis, Greenfield, Milwaukee and Brown Deer, and the headquarters in Brookfield.
Candidates can fill out an online job applications in advance, or the agency will help them with that on the spot. Recruiters will conduct interviews that day.
“It’s definitely a possibility that you walk in to apply and walk out with a job on that same day. That’s truly what we are looking to do,” Ramirez said.
“We will try to match you up with the best position based on your skill level, hours or the flexibility you need,” she added.
Also Friday, global staffing agency ManpowerGroup will host a conference on women in manufacturing.
The event at ManpowerGroup’s headquarters in Milwaukee will be livestreamed for anyone to listen. Online registration is available at https:// go.manpowergroup.com/womeninmanufacturing.
“There has been a lot of talk about gender parity, but we need action. When only a quarter of manufacturing workers today are women, and talent shortages continue to grow, it’s a huge opportunity to fill good jobs,” ManpowerGroup says on its website.
Speakers at the conference, which starts at 7:30 a.m., include Tessa Myers, head of North American sales at Rockwell Automation, Erid N. Valdez Vasquez, a plant manager at Rockwell, Katelyn Vara, senior test and development engineer at Mercury Marine, and Ella Johnson, a welder at Wisconsin Metal Parts Inc.
The conference comes as the labor market is at a crossroads.
While there’s a steady demand for jobs, the labor supply, especially in Wisconsin, is very tight now, said Michael Stull, senior vice president at Manpower North America.
“Employers are bad at knowing the skills needed for tomorrow. But they ... that they need a workforce that can change,” Stull said.
For job seekers, Stull said, “the best currency going forward will be a combination of proven work skills and the ability to learn new things.”