OXNARD : Unemployment Office Will Close

The unemployment office in south Oxnard is scheduled to close in March and will be replaced by a smaller, more conveniently located office in Ventura, an official with the state Employment Development Department said.

When the move is made from the office at 200 W. Pleasant Valley Road, the department will no longer have two of the county’s three unemployment centers located in Oxnard.

The new office in Ventura will be at 4839 Market St., near the Ventura Freeway and California 126.

The closure will not affect operations at the north Oxnard office at 1960 North C St., or at the Simi Valley office at 3855 Alamo St., said Annette Sparks, who manages the south Oxnard center.

The department no longer needs the spacious south Oxnard center because administration of two job training programs has been transferred to other agencies, Sparks said.

“Offices like this are downsizing,” Sparks said of the 15,000-square-foot office that opened in 1981. “We don’t need as much space because of automation and the transfer of the programs.”

The move also means the department will no longer have two centers in the same city, a situation that sometimes created overcrowding at the north Oxnard office, Sparks said. The opening of the 9,000-square-foot Ventura office, tentatively scheduled for March 23, should draw clients from Ventura and other areas of western Ventura County, she said.

“By moving to Ventura, we hope to equalize the number of people visiting each office, so that the clients and claimants don’t have to wait so long,” Sparks said.

The south Oxnard office is tentatively scheduled to close on March 20.