Worry and hope for Sears employees looking for work

Rajat Kumar is a former Loyalist College student. He studied Business Administration. Image by Evan McClelland

By Evan McClelland

BELLEVILLE – Rajat Kumar is worried about his future.

Kumar is one of the more than 600 local employees who are looking for work after Sears announced its closure.

“If you don’t get your pay cheque, you can’t survive the month,” he said.

“I’m trying to get more job offers, see who’s hiring.” 

When he spoke with QNet News, Kumar had just visited the job fair for Sears employees, which took place Wednesday at the Sears Warehouse cafeteria in Belleville.

“I got some of the job offers there…I’m going to apply soon,” he said.

The job fair isn’t the only option available to Sears’ employees looking for work. QNetNews spoke to Morgan Foran of META Employment Services and Joanne Leith of Loyalist College Community Employment Services. They couldn’t speak directly about their Sears clientele, but they did talk about ways they can help people who find themselves out of work.

Leith said she has seen some increase in the number of clients lately, mostly experienced workers. Foran says the number of unemployed workers she’s seeing is holding steady. Neither offered any concern about handling new clients.

Kumar had visited Leith’s organization.

“They kind of helped me, did up my resume a bit. They constantly e-mail me, the lady who was supposed to help me, that’s really helpful,” he said.

Foran said that, at the moment, there are more employers posting jobs than there are job seekers. Most of the jobs are in the manufacturing sector, but retail jobs are also common, she said.

“The unemployment rate in this area is actually fairly low, and it’s lower than it’s been in a long time,” Leith said.

Both talked about the various programs designed to help people in this kind of situation, including ones focused on retraining.

“You may not find the exact job you were doing, but guaranteed you’ve got skills from the job that you’ve been at for 10, 15, 20 plus years,” Foran said.

They try to assess and tailor their retraining programs to individuals, however they are restricted to people who are already unemployed. It’s not ideal for someone in Kumar’s position, who has a part time job on the side, but it is an option for others.

“I’m a young fella and can get a job quicker than people who are 62 and losing their jobs. So I’m really, really worried about them.” he said.

While they are not counsellors, they do have workshops that look at “what happens in that whole cycle of loss and what sort of stages you go through,” Foran said.

“For other people it’s job searching and maybe they haven’t done that in a long time. So just coming in to get a little support, to be able to apply to some jobs that are available, and there are jobs out there,” Leith said.

The fact that there are jobs out there is good news for Kumar. There is something else Kumar likes about the situation.

“The community is coming together, like the mayor and employers, to help the employees here.”