ORLANDO, Fla. – Venues across Central Florida, including the Amway Center, are once again booking events and looking for staff.
On Wednesday evening, Amway Center held a job fair for all types of positions. The event also included in-person interviews.
Rosie Nwanganga attended the job fair, adding she currently drives Lyft, but is exploring her options.
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“It felt good to talk to someone face-to-face,” Nwanganga said. “It feels like almost everything is hiring, but there’s not a mad amount of people applying. It shows that times are definitely changing.”
Sean Snaith, Ph. D. is an economics professor at the University of Central Florida. He said that some hospitality workers switched industries after having their jobs taken away during the pandemic.
“If you are a bartender, you are looking at the situation like I’m not going to be making daiquiris anytime soon, what are my other options and so I think many people migrated to different positions,” Snaith said.
Snaith said with Florida’s termination of the federal unemployment benefit, the number of people applying should increase.
“I’m not getting that extra $300 bucks unemployment insurance so now things are a little tighter, maybe it makes sense to go back to into the labor force,” Snaith said.
Shaquille Wilbon said that he has been unemployed for the past year. Wilbon said that he has been hesitant to rejoin the workforce out of health concerns, but is now ready to jump back in.
“Some people were affected really hard and some not so much, so it really just depends on your situation, but I would say we have to start working again,” Wilbon said.
Anyone who applied for a job at the Amway Center on Wednesday left with free tickets to this weekend’s Predators game.
There are two more job fairs scheduled. Anyone interest in applying can show up in person during these dates listed below:
- Aug. 14
- 12 p.m. - 4 p.m.
- East Terrace Level concourse
- Sept. 7
- 4 p.m. - 8 p.m.
- East Terrace Level concourse