August 19th COVID-19 Update

As businesses around the Pensacola area are feeling the deepening effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, local chambers of commerce are working to provide help.

Part of that assistance will take the form of the inaugural “Re-Employ EscaRosa” campaign, by the Greater Pensacola Chamber of Commerce; FloridaWest, CareerSource EscaRosa, the Gulf Coast Minority Chamber, and the Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce.

“We’ve been talking among ourselves about what can we do to help get people back to work,” said Todd Thomson, President of the Greater Pensacola Chamber. “I hear from employers quite a bit that they have jobs, but they need people.”

“In talking to CareerSource EscaRosa, we found they were having some events in September; we had been taking with Florida West and the Gulf Coast Minority Chamber about doing a job fair,” said Thomson. “So what we did is we just got together and said, ‘Let’s make September a reemployment month.’”

A number of the job fairs are virtual, but there will be opportunities to visit CareerSource EscaRosa and apply in-person.

“It’s really an opportunity for folks that need a job to get one,” Thomson said. “We’re lucky – our unemployment rate has been going down steadily the past few months. But we want that to continue, and we want to provide this as a month-long opportunity for those folks to find a job.”

Virtual job fairs are on tap for Sept. 3, 10 and 24. More information is available at the websites of the participating organizations. What kinds of jobs will be up for grabs? Thomson says they’ll pretty much run the gamut.