Nearly 17,000 Unemployed (And Underemployed) Kentuckians Show Up For 1,000 Ford Motors Jobs.
Nearly 17,000 show up for Ford jobs
Written by Jere Downs
Nearly 17,000 showed up at the Kentucky Office of Employment & Training downtown in the past week seeking jobs at Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant paying $15.51 per hour.
As of the end of the day Thursday, the last day to submit an application, 16,837 applicants had turned over forms entering a lottery Friday that will determine who will move on for consideration by Ford. The number of applicants that will advance via the lottery wasn’t disclosed.
Ford will need 1,800 additional workers when the plant reopens in November for a total work force of 2,900 on two shifts assembling a new Escape Sport Utility Vehicle.
Yet many of those posts could go to returning Ford workers laid off in Louisville or at the automaker’s plants and parts facilities elsewhere in North America.
The automaker began taking applications July 7 and those candidates face plenty of competition from family members and acquaintances of current Ford employees. Each of the 5,000 active UAW Ford workers in Louisville recently received red referral slips to pass on to a potential applicant, Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said.
That means up to 22,000 applicants will be subject to the lottery from which Ford will consider qualifications, conduct a math tests and other screenings, process background checks and hold interviews to make hires.
Evans declined Thursday to specify exactly how many job applicants will be chosen from the lottery.
“Employee referrals are subject to the same testing and lottery system as the other applicants,” she added.
The lottery of public applicants begins Friday at 7 a.m. at the Louisville Assembly Plant on Fern Valley Road, said Connie Schnell, regional manager of the state employment office.
“All these people came at the last minute,” Schnell said of 4,337 applications that flooded in on Thursday at the 600 Cedar Street office.
The number of job seekers is not surprising, said Schnell and others who specialize in helping people find work.
“That tells you something,” said James Atkinson, a former lineworker at Louisville Assembly who is a career counselor at the University of Louisville.
Many Ford applicants are likely seeking to upgrade from lower wage jobs. “There are still a lot of people who are underemployed or unemployed,” he said.
The new Ford jobs pay about half the wages of veteran UAW Ford workers. Health benefits begin for new workers after eight months on the job.
Steven M. Stone, the UAW building chairman at the Fern Valley Road plant said the number of applicants was easily anticipated, even at the lower, second tier beginning wage.
“I expected at least 10,000 to sign up. Those are good jobs even though they are `two tier’,” Stone said Friday.
Through upcoming contract talks this fall between Ford and the UAW, the lower starting wages could be improved, he added.
UAW workers made many concessions to help Ford recover in recent years, including giving up overtime after eight straight hours, annual cost of living allowances, break time and more. Perhaps the biggest concession is the hiring of the second tier of lower paid workers to comprise no more than 20 percent of Ford’s U.S. workforce.
Louisville Assembly Plant will be among the first in Ford’s system to employ a workforce where employees doing the same work get vastly different pay.
“I am glad that the men and women in the plant have done the right things so we’ve been able to expand,” Stone added.
New, lower Ford wages of more than $15 hourly represent double minimum wage “and could help a lot of people,” applicant Kimberly Carter, a 45-year-old cosmetologist, said as she applied for one of the jobs with her daughter Lubbrea Carter, 21.
Unemployed Somali immigrant Anab Rashid, 27, said she heard news of the Ford hiring on the radio in her Shively apartment on Dixie Highway.
“I just want a job,” said Rashid, adding she emigrated to the U.S. in 2000.
State officials had forecast that up to 18,000 people would apply for a chance to labor inside a Ford factory, a post viewed by many as a step on a secure career ladder.
“I hope I get lucky,” said Brad Bell, 32, adding he worked part time shuttling packages at United Parcel Service for a decade and is now jobless and living in his childhood home in Shively.
Written by Jere Downs
Nearly 17,000 showed up at the Kentucky Office of Employment & Training downtown in the past week seeking jobs at Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant paying $15.51 per hour.
As of the end of the day Thursday, the last day to submit an application, 16,837 applicants had turned over forms entering a lottery Friday that will determine who will move on for consideration by Ford. The number of applicants that will advance via the lottery wasn’t disclosed.
Ford will need 1,800 additional workers when the plant reopens in November for a total work force of 2,900 on two shifts assembling a new Escape Sport Utility Vehicle.
Yet many of those posts could go to returning Ford workers laid off in Louisville or at the automaker’s plants and parts facilities elsewhere in North America.
The automaker began taking applications July 7 and those candidates face plenty of competition from family members and acquaintances of current Ford employees. Each of the 5,000 active UAW Ford workers in Louisville recently received red referral slips to pass on to a potential applicant, Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said.
That means up to 22,000 applicants will be subject to the lottery from which Ford will consider qualifications, conduct a math tests and other screenings, process background checks and hold interviews to make hires.
Evans declined Thursday to specify exactly how many job applicants will be chosen from the lottery.
“Employee referrals are subject to the same testing and lottery system as the other applicants,” she added.
The lottery of public applicants begins Friday at 7 a.m. at the Louisville Assembly Plant on Fern Valley Road, said Connie Schnell, regional manager of the state employment office.
“All these people came at the last minute,” Schnell said of 4,337 applications that flooded in on Thursday at the 600 Cedar Street office.
The number of job seekers is not surprising, said Schnell and others who specialize in helping people find work.
“That tells you something,” said James Atkinson, a former lineworker at Louisville Assembly who is a career counselor at the University of Louisville.
Many Ford applicants are likely seeking to upgrade from lower wage jobs. “There are still a lot of people who are underemployed or unemployed,” he said.
The new Ford jobs pay about half the wages of veteran UAW Ford workers. Health benefits begin for new workers after eight months on the job.
Steven M. Stone, the UAW building chairman at the Fern Valley Road plant said the number of applicants was easily anticipated, even at the lower, second tier beginning wage.
“I expected at least 10,000 to sign up. Those are good jobs even though they are `two tier’,” Stone said Friday.
Through upcoming contract talks this fall between Ford and the UAW, the lower starting wages could be improved, he added.
UAW workers made many concessions to help Ford recover in recent years, including giving up overtime after eight straight hours, annual cost of living allowances, break time and more. Perhaps the biggest concession is the hiring of the second tier of lower paid workers to comprise no more than 20 percent of Ford’s U.S. workforce.
Louisville Assembly Plant will be among the first in Ford’s system to employ a workforce where employees doing the same work get vastly different pay.
“I am glad that the men and women in the plant have done the right things so we’ve been able to expand,” Stone added.
New, lower Ford wages of more than $15 hourly represent double minimum wage “and could help a lot of people,” applicant Kimberly Carter, a 45-year-old cosmetologist, said as she applied for one of the jobs with her daughter Lubbrea Carter, 21.
Unemployed Somali immigrant Anab Rashid, 27, said she heard news of the Ford hiring on the radio in her Shively apartment on Dixie Highway.
“I just want a job,” said Rashid, adding she emigrated to the U.S. in 2000.
State officials had forecast that up to 18,000 people would apply for a chance to labor inside a Ford factory, a post viewed by many as a step on a secure career ladder.
“I hope I get lucky,” said Brad Bell, 32, adding he worked part time shuttling packages at United Parcel Service for a decade and is now jobless and living in his childhood home in Shively.
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