Career Center sees distinct spike in job orders

Job orders placed with the Missouri Career Center spiked last week, and a couple of companies in hiring mode - Wyndham Vacation Resorts and Kraft Foods - are looking to put more than 200 people to work.

Center Director Bill Dowling said orders jumped significantly the week of Aug. 10, with several large employers listing openings on the center's online job board at www.missouricareersource.com. Wyndham, Kraft, Ozarks Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Co., T-Mobile and SRC Holdings Corp. were among the companies seeking qualified applicants, he said.

At press time, there were 772 active job orders for the seven-county Ozarks area, although most of the open positions are concentrated in Springfield and Branson.

"That's pretty good, considering what the numbers were before," Dowling said. "The week before, there were 400-and-something. ... There's no doubt there's some fluctuation, but it's showing some good signs."

Because employers post most positions by title, Dowling wasn't sure how many openings each company had, but he did say that Wyndham planned to hire about 150 people in its customer service and human resources departments.

About 400 Wyndham employees lost their jobs in February when the company closed its 1839 E. Independence St. call center. Late last year, New Jersey-based Wyndham Worldwide Corp. (NYSE: WYN) announced a restructuring that eliminated 4,000 jobs companywide in anticipation of an $800 million decline in its timeshare sales in 2009.

Whether Wyndham plans to reopen the center remains unclear; messages left with the company's corporate communications department weren't returned by press time.

On the manufacturing side, Kraft (NYSE: KFT) will augment its local work force with at least 75 employees by year's end.

Kraft's production plant at 2035 E. Bennett St. will gradually add between 50 and 60 full-time workers and another 25 to 30 part-time employees, according to Adrienne Dimopoulos, senior manager of corporate affairs and operations. The plant currently employs 935 people, Dimopoulos said.

While both Kraft and Ozarks Coca-Cola have weathered the recession without laying off a single employee, neither employer had placed job orders with the Career Center for some time, Dowling said. Ozarks Coca-Cola, however, is only hiring a handful of positions at this time, said Human Resources Manager Jack Burk.

Four openings recently created through a mix of promotions and employees leaving the company already have been filled, Burk said, adding that Ozarks Coca-Cola hires exclusively through the Career Center. Burk said the head count is 343 at Ozarks Coca-Cola, where officials say they haven't laid off anyone due to the economy in 104 years of operation.

Dowling said manufacturing layoffs seem to have slowed in recent months, yet heavy manufacturers in the Springfield area that cut personnel in late 2008 or early 2009 still aren't ready to rehire displaced workers.

"We're not seeing any callbacks yet in the manufacturing industry," he said.

One Springfield-based manufacturer is gearing up to hire employees for a new joint venture.

Dowling said SRC Holdings representatives will visit the center, 1514 S. Glenstone Ave., on Aug. 17 to begin recruiting for CNH Reman, a full-scale remanufacturing operation expected to eventually move into a standalone production facility. SRC and Illinois-based farm and construction equipment manufacturer CNH Global N.V. announced the venture in late July.

T-Mobile also is hiring an unknown number of positions through the center, but attempts to reach company officials for more information were unsuccessful. According to T-Mobile's job posting on the Career Center's site, the company is seeking full-time customer service representatives at wages of $10.50 to $12.50 an hour.

After conducting a nationwide search in 2005, Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile USA Inc. selected northwest Springfield as the site for an inbound call center. As of January 2008, the 77,000-square-foot center employed 755, according to Springfield Business Journal research.[[In-content Ad]]