Job-Seekers Go Shopping for Employment at Buenaventura Plaza Event : Economy: More than 130 people apply for holiday work at the mall through the state’s Employment Development Department.
When 17-year-old Racheal Harris moved to Ventura from Arizona a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t worry much about landing a job.
“In Phoenix, it was very easy to get a job,” said Racheal, who has been out of school for a year. “I got hired everywhere I put in applications.”
But Southern California, with a jobless rate soaring near 10%, is a different story. Last weekend, Racheal put in 20 applications at stores in the Buenaventura Plaza. She has yet to hear anything back.
So on Saturday, she and her 16-year-old stepsister, Vanessa Warren, joined more than 130 other job-seekers in applying for holiday work at the mall through the state’s Employment Development Department.
Applicants waited up to 1 1/2 hours to file their generic job applications with state officials who had set up a temporary office in the mall’s center court. Then the state employees quizzed the job-seekers on what kind of work they wanted and what their experience was before sending them off to one or two of the mall’s stores with a referral card in hand.
“How about working at a sporting goods store?” state employee Ignatius Abeyta asked Ryanna Grimaldo, 16. “You’d sell athletic clothes and equipment. I think the interview will go real good.”
Ryanna had had something more trendy in mind, like the women’s clothing store Contempo. “I like to dress up,” she explained. But anything that was not fast food was “more than perfect,” she said.
Like the other teen-agers crowding the employment table, Ryanna faced an uphill battle. With a job--any job--so hard to come by, many adults who usually would not think of working in a mall clothing shop have already buried the top chain stores in a flurry of applications.
Ryanna--just barely a member of the work force with a part-time job at her father’s office--can’t compete.
“We’ve got about 10 to 12 people coming by a day,” said an employee at The Limited, who would not give her name. “There’s a lot of older women coming by, and the older ones really need the work. Many of them have children at home. So it’s (the teen-agers) who are losing out.”
The Limited worker said some of the women applying for holiday work are in their late 20s, with resumes crammed with sales experience. High school students, on the other hand, have restrictions on how many hours they can work, how late they can stay at the store and--the biggest roadblock of all--applications that are blank in the “experience” section.
“It’s just so much harder for kids these days,” she said.
Many employers, in fact, said they were anxious to hire older employees rather than high school students, if only because adults have the ability to come in early in the morning and the freedom to stay late at night.
But Saturday, teen-agers far outnumbered adults. “Adults are encouraged to apply,” Abeyta said.
Many adult applicants, however, report the going is not easy for them, either.
Dean Hayden, 40, has been looking for a sales job for a month and a half. “I want to start off in sales and work my way up to management,” said the Ventura resident, who used to work in sales years ago before changing course and becoming a nurse’s aide to the elderly. Now, he wants his old career back.
“I’ve been doing it (nurse’s aide work) for 13 years and I’m burnt out on it,” he said. “I’ve lost a lot of patients.” When his latest patient had to move on to a nursing home recently, Hayden decided to get out of the emotionally draining work.
So he joined the hordes in the unemployment line. “There’s so many applicants--so many of us out of work,” he said.
Which is precisely the reason Abeyta, the state employee, worked so hard at organizing the local job-matching program. He spent the last month trudging from store to store in the mall, meeting with shop managers to find out exactly what kind of employees they needed for the holiday season. Saturday, armed with two boxes filled with employers’ wish lists, he tried to match stores with potential employees.
Many dress shops are reluctant to hire someone under 18 years old, he said. So he steered Ryanna toward Champs, the sporting goods store, and the clothing store Jay Jacobs instead.
“Champs will take someone under 18, and Jay Jacobs will consider someone under 18,” he explained.
For her part, Ryanna was just thrilled not to be directed to the mall’s food court.
“I’m happy with both of them,” she said. “Jay Jacobs is perfect, because I love dressing up, and Champs is more than perfect, because I like to play softball and stuff.”
FYI
The Employment Development Department’s holiday job program will continue from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today in the Center Court of the Buenaventura Plaza. It will also run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 14.
