Now hiring: Local job market starting to recover

It’s not a scientific survey, but 10 Colorado Springs-area employers contacted by The Gazette recently are doing something that many job hunters haven’t seen in a while — they’re hiring. And in some cases, they’re adding hundreds of employees.

That doesn’t mean the area’s economy is booming, but it’s a sign that the local job market is starting to recover and that jobs are a bit more plentiful than six months ago. While some of the hiring is to replace workers who left for other jobs, many of the employers say they are expanding their staffs as a result of growth in their business or as part of new products or services they are getting ready to launch.

The Gazette surveyed employers who have announced staff expansions, reported hiring plans to the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp. or have advertised openings with springsjobs.com, The Gazette’s employment website. The survey showed that 10 local employers are planning to fill more than 1,000 openings in coming months, many of them concentrated in the call center and health care industries.

That number comes on the heels of another statistic: About 4,500 more area residents held jobs in May than did in January, the strongest job growth the local economy has seen since the recession began, said Fred Crowley, senior economist for the Southern Colorado Economic Forum.

“We fought the recession and the business downturn through attrition and no seasonal hiring, but we have added more than 30 positions this year because things are looking good for Ace,” said Kalen Franklin, retail support manager of Ace Hardware’s distribution center in Colorado Springs. “As people start spending more money, this is where they start with home-improvement and maintenance projects they have put off.”

The Pikes Peak Workforce Center, which provides a variety of employment services for job seekers and employers in El Paso and Teller counties, had 363 listings for jobs Tuesday, the most since the holiday shopping season late last year, said Sherman Swafford, the center’s business-relations-group manager. The listings totals don’t indicate the number of jobs available because each listing could be for a single position or 100 jobs, he said.

“Over the last few months, there has been a slow but steady increase in the number of jobs posted. The job market seems to be on the upswing, and some employers are even hosting hiring events,” Swafford said. “There has been a pickup in retail and customer service hiring, and some of the jobs are pretty well-paying. While we are still seeing some employers laying off staff, we aren’t seeing the big numbers of layoffs like we did a year ago.”

Cari Shaffer, CEO and founder of Add Staff, a Springs staffing firm, said she has noticed “an uptick” in the local job market, especially in the service and defense industries, though she said hiring was almost as strong in the medical, nonprofit, research-and-development and legal industries. Among jobs being filled, she said, employers most often are seeking engineers and administrative personnel.

“We had the biggest week (in mid-June) that we had since early October, and that doesn’t even count government work,” Shaffer said. “We also are seeing more movement in the job market, particularly in purchasing, human resources and finance. That shows that people have enough confidence to change jobs. There isn’t a huge amount of that yet, but it is happening for the first time since the recession started to take hold.”

Some of Add Staff’s customers are using the agency because “they have cut as far as they can, and they need more brain- and body-power to get their product out the door,” Shaffer said. “Their employees are fatigued from doing more than one job because of layoffs.”

While some employers are showing signs of hiring, the overall employment picture is still guarded.

More than 26,500 Colorado Springs-area residents — or 8.6 percent of the labor force — remain out of work. That’s more than double the area’s 4 percent jobless rate before the recession struck in late 2007. Likewise, local payrolls are still down nearly 20,000 from peak levels of late 2007.

Here’s a look at the employers hiring or getting ready to hire:

• Everest University Online, which plans to hire 400 employees during the next 10 to 24 months in admissions, financial aid and student services at a service center it opened in March in the former Intel manufacturing complex on Garden of the Gods Road. The school, owned by Corinthian Colleges, has hired 100 employees since opening the center three months ago to help accommodate the rapid enrollment growth in its online programs. To apply: www.cci.edu/careers

• USAA announced it will add 237 jobs by year’s end at its Colorado Springs customer service center to handle financial advice and banking services that the center started offering in April and to fill jobs in its insurance operations vacated by those who moved into the new local financial advisory and banking unit. The San Antonio-based, member-owned company employs more than 1,000 at the center to handle auto- and homeowners-insurance policies. To apply: www.usaa.apply2jobs.com

• Affiliated Computer Services is hiring 150 employees by year’s end as the Norwalk, Conn.-based unit of Xerox expands its year-old Colorado Springs customer service center to handle overnight, bilingual and technical-support calls. About half of the openings are for technical support, and 50 are for bilingual representatives, some of which may work in technical support. The center already employs 600 to take calls for an unidentified wireless carrier. To apply: www.acs-inc.com/career/index.html

• PRC plans to hire 150 sales representatives during the next three months for its Colorado Springs call center as replacements for attrition and to handle an expected surge in orders for satellite television offered by DirecTV before the NFL season begins. To apply: http://prc.hodesiq.com/job_start.asp

• Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group, its Aspen Diversified Industries training and eduction unit, and its Pikes Peak Integrated Solutions administrative, finance, marketing and technology support unit have 38 open positions for counselors, clinicians, nurse practitioners and psychiatrists, as well as administrative, food-service and maintenance personnel, mostly as replacements for attrition. Job candidates must complete a background check. To apply: http://tinyurl.com/282pjkg

• Colorado Springs-based defense contractor Intelligent Software Solutions said last month it plans to hire up to 30 software engineers locally this year after the Air Force Research Laboratory boosted the value of the company’s largest contract by $198 million. The engineers will help develop upgrades to the company’s data-analysis and significant-event tracking software that is used by more than 50 U.S. military commands worldwide. www.issinc.com/current-openings.html

• CareCore National added 51 people in the first half of the year and is trying to hire 20 more customer service personnel, nurses and doctors during the next four months as a result of growth in its customer base of health insurers and new programs handling authorizations of radiation therapy, pain management, and obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment for more than 30 million customers of its insurer clients. To apply: www.carecorenational.com/ca reers.asp

• Firstsource Solutions is hiring 15 collections representatives for its Colorado Springs call center, which it took over from Barclays in 2008, to handle contracts the company has recently signed from clients it did not identify. To apply: http://tinyurl.com/2c98nfn

• Braxton Technologies has added more than 25 people in the past six months and is hiring 12 more software engineers and developers as a subcontractor to Raytheon on an $886 million contract awarded in February to develop a part of the next-generation Global Positioning System. Colorado Springs-based Braxton also is considering adding an additional four employees in accounting and proposal development over the next three months. To apply: http://tinyurl.com/2bu3gty

• Infinity Systems Engineering, another Raytheon subcontractor on the next-generation GPS contract, has hired seven employees in satellite operations, software development and systems engineering since the contract was awarded and is now hiring two more. To apply: www.infinity.aero/ise/careers.html

• Ace Hardware has added more than 30 people to the staff at its Colorado Springs retail support center and is now hiring six material handlers and three drivers as the Chicago area-based retailer-owned cooperative converts temporary summer jobs to permanent positions. The 727,000-square-foot distribution center employs about 200 to serve nearly 300 independently owned stores in 10 Western states. To apply: http://coloradosprings.jobing.com

• Cable television giant Comcast is in the process of hiring 20 customer service representatives for its Colorado Springs call center as replacements for attrition, but applications for the positions closed late last month.
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Call the writer at 636-0234.

BEST-PAYING, MOST-PLENTIFUL JOBS

The highest paying jobs in Colorado Springs are in management, business and financial operations, computer and mathematical science, architecture and engineering, and legal and health care practice, all of which paid an average wage of more than $30 an hour as of May 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The area’s average wage at that time was $21.05, or 15 cents more than the national average.

Occupations in the area with average wages significantly above the national average include computer and mathematical sciences, architecture and engineering and health care support, according to the bureau’s May 2009 study. Management, legal and health care practitioners, education, transportation, sales, arts, entertainment and media all earned significantly less than the national average, the study found.

Jobs in computer and mathematical science, architecture and engineering and food service all were more plentiful in the Springs as a percentage of the overall work force, while maintenance, repair and production jobs were a smaller part of the work force than the national average.