On Thursday, a day before the state’s latest unemployment numbers are released, Jesse Carbajal goes to a job fair. He’s been out of work since August. He’s something of a jack-of-all-trades. His last job was as a hospital food-service worker. It paid $10 an hour, but he saw no future.
“I’m looking to better myself,” he says. “I don’t have a college degree, but I have a high school diploma, and I’m a very fast learner, the kind that will give 150 percent.”
This fair is hosted by the Society of Hispanic Human Resources Professionals and the University of Colorado Denver. SHHRP invitations to companies were plain: “Come if you have a job,” says LeRoy Romero, who started the organization in 1995. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Thirty-seven companies take him up on it. SHHRP, pronounced “sharp,” is open to all, and diversity is precisely what shows up Thursday. Among the job hunters, you have college students, out-of-work professionals, midlife transformation seekers, ex-cons, single parents emerging from welfare. White, black, Latino, the suited and the jeaned. More than 500 people.
The companies also are varied, and seasonal hiring has begun. Safeway, Health One, First Bank. Olinger mortuary wants salespeople; Denver Public Schools needs teachers; Lowe’s is heading into its slow months but is looking for a cashier here and a part-time evening load puller there.
Recruiters set out signs and pamphlets and pens and sit in their booths and wait. I expect the kind of recruiter ambivalence that is the often inevitable result of an employers’ market — yeah, we saw last week’s first-time unemployment claims too. Not much improvement, huh?
But Sprint recruiter Nancy Martinez is on her feet. “We are hiring right now!” she says to a couple of college students looking for part-time work. “We have jobs in collections, tech support, customer support. One perk is you get your phone at a discount. Your plan is basically free.” The two students exchange a glance: “That’s a plus.”
“Definitely get online and apply because we are hiring now,” Martinez says. Turnover in call centers is high. I ask her how much the job pays. $14.47 an hour.
I wander around, talk to folks, eavesdrop on a few conversations. It takes me awhile to recognize the mood in the room because it, too, is unexpected. Optimism.
“I come in here and I think, ‘I can do this,’ ” says Daisy Ojeda. Brian Grissman says: “I know I will find work. It may be a small job. I have family in South Dakota, and it has the second-lowest unemployment rate. I may have to move.” Phillip Redden says he has a felony on his record and so has a tougher job search. “Sometimes emotions get the best of you, but I always try to stay optimistic.”
I seek a reality check with Roseann Wagner, an employee services coordinator at UC Denver’s Career Center. “They’re optimistic,” she says of her job-seeking students. She sounds as surprised as I.
The state reported Friday that the number of working Coloradans increased by about 1,600 in September to about 2.4 million people. The number of residents unsuccessfully looking for work also rose — by 2,400. Almost 219,000 were unemployed last month. Last September, that number was 206,500.
The despondent are here. They’re the ones asking recruiters: “Do you really have a job?” But they appear outnumbered.
One could argue the only people who show up at job fairs these days are those inclined toward optimism. The long-term unemployed may have lost faith in such affairs. Indeed, Kathy Porter, a Denver Workforce Center business development specialist, says she urged her class to come to the fair and was met with some eye-rolling.
“I stood on that side of this table six months ago,” Porter tells me. She was laid off in January from a bank after more than six years on the job. Porter is all about the positive attitude. When someone at the job fair tells her, “I’m 52 and that means no one will hire me,” she tells them, “Lean in here a little closer. I’m 59, and if I had allowed age to be my barrier, I wouldn’t be working.”
Job-seekers gravitate toward Porter’s booth. She invites them to the Workforce Center. It’s free. She asks if they have their resumes arranged in chronological order. “If you do, you’ve just written your own obituary. It’s not about you. It’s about what you have to offer.” She says: “Target. Target. Target. None of that machine-gun- firing-I-just-sent-out-40-resumes.”
Optimism is not a simple frame of mind. It should not be confused with naïvete. Though the naïve are often optimistic, the reverse is not necessarily true. Optimism is sometimes an act of courage. It is sometimes an act of necessity. It is always an act of faith in oneself and in others. In this room, it is expressed in the exchange of a business card, the presentation of a resume, a handshake across a table. It is an understanding that, yes, it is hard out there and much has been lost. But not everything.
“I feel really good,” Carbajal says. “I’m healthy. I know I can do something. I’ll find something. I know it.”
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
