Michigan Works! promotes employment with U.P. Jobs Now campaign | WJMN

Posted: Sep 29, 2020 / 07:40 PM EDT / Updated: Sep 29, 2020 / 10:23 PM EDT

MARQUETTE, Mich., (WJMN) – Over 1,000 jobs are open right now in the Upper Peninsula. According to Tim Hyde, a workforce services manager at Michigan Works, they started the “U.P. Jobs Now” campaign to help fill those jobs.

“We’re trying to look at and we’re trying to promote these over a thousand good-paying, safe jobs that are here in the U.P. that employers are looking to fill now,” said Hyde.

Hyde says since starting the campaign they’ve seen a dramatic increase in traffic on their website.

“That page, the U.P. Jobs Now page was just created and just launched just a couple of weeks ago, two to three weeks ago,” said Hyde. “There was about a 500% increase in the traffic to our website and to that page.”

The “U.P. Jobs Now” page has contact information for all Michigan Works offices in the Upper Peninsula as well as the number for texting Michigan works and links to the job portal.

“We’re trying to do a creative way to catch people’s attention and I think this ad campaign or marketing campaign has done that,” said Hyde. “So we’re focusing on these jobs and we’re trying to create an easy to use almost portal for them to be able to go to, to find these jobs.”

People can text, call or set up an appointment for an in-person visit to Michigan Works for help finding a job. Hyde says they have people who work with employers and those seeking work to find jobs and workers that are a good fit.

“There’s a way that they can text us which is new initiative that we’ve started here at U.P. Michigan Works where they can text us and we can communicate over text,” said Hyde. “Or they can call or come into the office anytime by appointment and we’ll be able to assist them in looking for those jobs.”

The links to jobs take site visitors to mitalent.org, Hyde says you can search for jobs by county and mile radius of a location.

“I did a hundred-mile radius from Marquette, which is where I’m at, and there were over 1,600 jobs,” said Hyde. “So what we’re hoping to see over time is that the number of jobs when we do that search we’re hoping to see that the number of those job listings goes down and again we’re just going to keep promoting those and talking to as many people as we can and letting them know about the opportunities.”

Hyde says the jobs that are available are safe and pay well.

“We’re telling people these are safe jobs and we feel very confident in the ability to be able to say that for multiple reasons you know and one of those is that there’s absolutely laws and there’s regulations that make sure the jobs are safe there’s OSHA and MIOSHA and they’re doing that on a daily basis,” said Hyde. “But it’s also in the employer’s best interest to make sure that they’re creating a safe work environment for their employees.”

Since the beginning of the pandemics, Hyde says they’ve seen a downturn in people looking for resources and help to find jobs. Brianna Farr, market manager at Manpower Group in Marquette, says they also have had difficulty filling jobs during the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, she says they went from 80 workers in March to 38 workers in April.

During the beginning of the pandemic, she said they were helping people navigate layoffs but are now doing interviews via zoom. Farr said they are now up to 100 and filling jobs hasn’t been as difficult but is still tough, they are looking to fill 70 openings.

If you’re an employer looking to find employees you can also post your job here on upmatters.com.

Latest News