Now hiring: Bartlesville companies seeking qualified employees

Bartlesville companies are still scrambling to find qualified employees to fill open positions, but local employment agencies are seeing a reason for optimism.

Since mid-July, a wave of candidates has begun to make their way in to find jobs of all kinds, said Carmen Stanton, president of Career Employment Service, Inc.

"We have an ample number of candidates and lots of job openings. I think people have gotten tired of COVID and unemployment," she said.

Christie Conditt, branch manager of Express Employment Professionals in Bartlesville, agrees.

"We have recently seen an uptick in candidates coming in to find jobs," she said.

While the hospitality, restaurant and other service-related industries were hit hardest by labor shortages more than a year ago, current openings run the gamut, said Sherri Wilt, president of the Bartlesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"I think most industries across the board still struggle to find enough employees," she said.

Available jobs range from general laborers to manufacturing jobs, from medical positions to banking jobs.

"The shortage (of employees) is not judgmental. We see it in every type of work," Conditt said.

Bartlesville isn't alone. The entire country is suffering from a shortage of workers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"Right now, the latest data shows that we have over 10 million job openings in the U.S.—but only around 6 million unemployed workers," Stephanie Ferguson, director of global employment policy & special initiatives for the Chamber, wrote in an Aug. 19 report.

"We have a lot of jobs, but not enough workers to fill them. If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have 5 million open jobs," she wrote.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Now hiring: Bartlesville companies seeking qualified employees