On Wednesday, the City of Michigan City, Economic Development Corporation of Michigan City (EDCMC), Michigan City Chamber of Commerce, Blue Chip Casino, and the Northwest Indiana Workforce Board WorkOne offices partnered to host the 2nd Annual Michigan City Community Job Fair at Blue Chip Casino.
The 2nd Annual Community Job Fair brought together employers, universities, skilled trades, training providers, and community organizations all under one roof at Blue Chip’s Stardust Event Center to highlight job opportunities and career paths for jobseekers.
“The goal today is to connect employers that have open and available positions to job seekers who might have the skills and are qualified to meet those openings,” said Allison Bertl, Business Services Manager with WorkOne Northwest.
The 2nd Annual Job Fair attracted around 50 different employers to Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City to meet with several hundred potential employees that came looking for opportunities.
“There’s a very broad range of employers here today,” Bertl added. “They range anywhere from manufacturing, hospitality, and retail to transportation, healthcare, and education. It’s hard to say how many people we’ll have here today but last year’s event drew a couple hundred people so we’re hoping for at least that, or better, this year.”
“This is the second job fair we’ve held and we’re really looking forward to continuing to host the event in collaboration with Michigan City and the Economic Development Corporation of Michigan City,” Bertl concluded.
Katie Eaton, EDCMC Economic Development Manager, was enthusiastic about the turnout of both employers and job seekers at this year’s event. As a partner for the event, and an advocate for the growth and development of Michigan City, Eaton spoke about the importance of the increasingly popular Michigan City Community Job Fair.
“For this being only the second year that we’ve done the event, this is huge growth over the first year,” Eaton said. “There’s a record number of employers, the room is packed, there’s a steady flow of job seekers, which is what we want, and there’s a mixture of opportunities. We have entry level, management, all industries, and it’s a great representation of what our community and what La Porte County has.”
“I’m just really excited,” Eaton said. “The key thing is that we’re able to offer this for free to our employers through the partnership of WorkOne Northwest Indiana, the Michigan City Chamber of Commerce, the City of Michigan City and Blue Chip Casino. We really feel like this event is important for our community and our employers, and we’re looking forward to continuing this as a free event every year in April.”
Organizations like the La Porte County YMCA, and Marketing Director, Ben Fout, work hard to make the county a better place to live and work. Part of their mission is based around social responsibility, and hiring members of the community feeds directly into that mission.
“We like to come to these events because the La Porte County YMCA likes to hire people within the community,” Fout said. “That’s what we’re all about, helping the community. This is just one other way that we can do that by hiring someone and giving them a job. This is a part of our social responsibility and we’ve had a tremendous turnout here today.”
Blue Chip Casino hosted the event again this year and Blue Chip Team Member Relations Manager, Lydia Garza, was on-hand speaking with prospective employees about the opportunities that the company can provide.
“We always have positions available and we’re always looking for new people to come in and sign up for employment,” Garza said. “We’re very interested in bringing people on and we want to make our presence felt as the employer of choice in the area.”