Valley’s Largest Job Fair Canceled

INDIO – The Valley’s largest job fair is canceled. Companies aren’t hiring and there aren’t enough jobs to go around.

The job fair was scheduled at the Fantasy Springs Convention Center in Indio. The job fair is postponed until October 2010.

There’s the hushed silence of a library inside the county employment office in Indio. Unemployed people look at computer monitors here, hoping they can find a job.

“I was in retail. Right now, I’m looking at Coca Cola. Time Warner, anything big. Not looking for a job, looking for a career,” says Leonardo Avila while applying for a job. “A lot of times, when you come here, you just apply. You actually have to go out there and look for jobs. When you go into the process of interviewing, you have to be confident. When you’re not confident, that’s when it really gets you down.”

The last large job fair was at Palm Springs Convention Center last September. The job market is so bad, employers won’t have enough open positions until October 2010.

“It’s a very long time,” says Tom Freeman with Riverside County’s Economic Development Agency. “And it’s something we didn’t want to do. But that’s what our employees were telling us will best suit them. They know where their projected vacancies will be. They know when their projected growth will be, that’s when they’re telling us they’re going to need more employees.”

State Assemblyman Manuel Perez tours Indio’s employment center, telling people he was once here looking for a job straight out of college. But, these are different times.

“I understand the frustration, I understand the concern. The only thing I will say is this, not to lose hope. We are here to service folks. That’s our responsibility and we’re going to do everything we can to do so,” says Assemblyman Perez.

Even though the large job fair at the Fantasy Springs Convention Center is canceled, there will be smaller job fair Saturday, August 29th at Cathedral City High School from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.