CLEVELAND — Hundreds of people made their way to the Huntington Convention Center in Downtown Cleveland Thursday for a first-of-its-kind hospitality industry job fair.
The Cleveland Hotel Association says its "Work in Travel Hiring Fair" is critical, given all the huge events coming to the city this year. More than 200 people pre-registered for the fair, which the CHA tells us showcased more than 250 job openings in everything from administration to housekeeping to security.
Twelve hotels and four venues were represented, including the Huntington Convention Center, the Great Lakes Science Center, Levy Restaurants, and even the Guardians. Hilton Cleveland Downtown General Manager Tammy LeBlanc was hoping to fill 50 to 60 positions, and was excited about the turnout.
"The first thing was to raise awareness of our industry and the amazing career opportunities that we have to offer [and] to also raise awareness of the season ahead, how we've come out of the pandemic," LeBlanc explained. "We're going to have great occupancy levels coming up. We have great events such as the Women's Final Four, the solar eclipse, American Society of Association Executives, the Pan Am Games, and we want to be ready to be able to service all those people coming in to visit us here in Cleveland."
Jared Daly of the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities helped coordinate the job fair, wanting to make sure the event was accessible to all kinds of people.
"I think this event is really important, because not only did they advertise it to the general public, but they included a lot of community partners that serve people that are deaf, that maybe have visual impairments, that are immigrants," Daly said. "So this group really worked hard to invite a lot of people that typically get left out of the labor market."
3News saw one woman get hired on the spot for a housekeeping job at The Ritz-Carlton, and Karen Pesavento was crossing her fingers that'll she'll land a gig, too, hopefully in administration.
"It would mean a lot," she expressed. "I've been out of work for a while, and I need to work. Like everyone else, I have bills, but I also want to have a career, and hotels — particularly very big institutions — have a lot of kinds of jobs, and you can usually move up inside the hotel chain."
The Cleveland Hotel Association says right now, 12% of hotel positions are open citywide. That's down compared to a year ago, when 24% of positions were vacant.