A visit to any shopping center in the Verde Valley will probably lead to an encounter with one of a few familiar signs: “Now Hiring” or “Help Wanted.”
The March unemployment rate for Yavapai County — the most recent available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — is 4.4%, close to the lowest it has been since before the Great Recession that started in 2007.
While full employment is good for job seekers who have an easier time finding work, it has made things difficult for many employers in the area.
“We’re looking for Spanish speakers mostly, since most of our clientele speaks Spanish,” Marvin Salazar, a manager at Boost Mobile in Cottonwood, said. Outside the store, a huge “Now Hiring” banner hangs over the doorway.
Salazar says the position has been open since November, with little luck.
“I’m the only Spanish speaker here, so we lose customers because people don’t want to wait for me.”
Home Depot and Walmart, neither of which are permitted to speak with the press without corporate approval, have signs announcing they are looking for new employees. Fry’s is hiring and heavily promoting its open positions to find new staff. So is Food City, though manager Tim Watts said that the supermarket has been able to find employees to fill many of their positions.
“There are some positions that are skilled positions like baker or meat cutter where applicants are mostly unqualified, but we’re doing in-store training,” Watts said.
Watts’ strategy to deal with the tight labor market is shared by many other employers in the area. While many find that entry-level positions are not as difficult to fill, finding a qualified applicant for a skilled position is close to “impossible,” in the words of Joe Mount
of Oxendale Jeep in Cottonwood. Mount has been searching for three positions in the parts shop and cannot find someone already trained. The shop has had job openings for months at this point and has received “the lowest number of applications for a time period ever.”
“Everyone has adjusted,” Mount said. “I don’t mind training and advancing them, starting them out in the warehouse and working up. People in the shop are going into technician mentoring.”
“I think it’s just the nature of the growing economy,” Camp Verde Economic Development Director Steve Ayers said. “Employers haveto be a little more accepting and a little more innovative. When the economy is slow you can do what you want, when the economy is robust like this, you have to set your standards at a certain level to fill the position.”
“We believe that the talent is out there for the type of needs that we have,” John Bassous, of Tierra Verde Builders in Camp Verde, said. “When we interview, we’re looking for people who we want for the future. We put all our people on training programs and certification classes.”
Bassous said his company has had to change its hiring practices in recent years to try finding applicants that they would not be able to by simply posting a job listing or a “Help Wanted” sign. Tierra Verde has been trying to take advantage of networks with other local contractors — plumbers, electricians, roofers — and sending applicants who did not seem like proper fits from one to another. Bassous said that recruiting applicants who have had minor run-ins with the law has also worked out very well for the company.
“There’s a little shortage of licensed cosmetologists,” said Martha Trinidad, of Great Clips. Trinidad said that the salon has had long waits for customers with not enough staff to cut hair.
“In this area with no cosmetology school, that’s where the shortage is. We offer competitive wages. Of all the Great Clips franchises, we’re the highest paying — higher than Phoenix,” she said.
But even that option escapes some. The manager of a dollar store in Cottonwood — who was unable to speak publicly as an employee of a nationwide chain — said that job openings had been unfilled for months, hurting business.
Due to the national status of the chain, he is unable to raise starting wages to deal with the hiring difficulty. In a tight labor market, it becomes almost impossible to find employees to fill the job.
