Despite higher unemployment, businesses still hiring

l Mark Turney, Rusk ISD director of transportation, is seeking applicants for bus driving positions. Currently the district has openings for one full-time driver and one driver for the morning routes. Substitute drivers are always needed, he said. Rusk ISD has 24 routes. The bus routes cover 220,000 miles and another 60,000 miles are driven to school functions. Total mileage driven in a year is 280,000 miles.

While the unemployment rate in Cherokee County is inching up, there are still a number of unfilled jobs for qualified applicants with the right skill set.

The county's two largest employers, Rusk State Hospital and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, have a combined staff of almost 2,000 employees. Both state agencies have unfilled vacancies, primarily because of the high price of fuel and the distance that some employees have been commuting to get to their jobs.

At Rusk State Hospital, for example, nursing vacancies have risen over the last two months. The facility recently hit a high vacancy rate of 15 registered nurses and five licensed vocational nurses.

"We have pulled it back down to about 15 total this month, and we have a good number of existing staff getting ready to graduate with their RN degrees," said Ted Debbs, RSH superintendent. "We are still down two psychiatrists. But we feel pretty confident that we will be able to fill one or both of these positions by the end of the fall."

At the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a recent hiring seminar filled many of the department's vacancies in Rusk. But the prison system is

always anxious to interview candidates.

Also in Rusk, new call center Etech Inc. is slated to open for business Aug. 25.

Chief Operating Officer Matt Rocco said that the new building, located on the square on Henderson Street, will open with 60 work stations and a capability of staffing 100 positions.

Some 25 employees are already hired and trained, and Mr. Rocco said that he hopes to hire another 20 soon after the business officially opens.

Cherokee County exceeds the national average of 6.0 percent and the state average of 5.0 percent in July. With a labor pool of 20,892, approximately 1,293 persons were unemployed during the reporting period.

Cherokee County's relatively high unemployment rate was boosted by the recent layoffs of 390 employees at AstroAir and 230 at Alliance Data in Jacksonville.

Those job losses have been offset by the addition of another new call center, eTelecare, which occupies space in Jacksonville formerly occupied by Alliance Data.

"eTelecare employs north of 225 employees, and they are adding more each week," said Darrell Prcin, president of Jacksonville Economic Development Corporation. The company hopes to grow in phases and employ approximately 400.

Zyklus recently purchased the building two site at AstroAir in Jacksonville and has already hired five or six employees, he said. The company will specialize in manufacturing manifolds for HVAC equipment.

"There is a potential for job growth," predicted Mr. Prcin.

He said the net job loss in Jacksonville has been fairly minimal and placed the number at approximately 100 jobs.

Just four years ago, the Cherokee County unemployment rate hovered at approximately 3.9 percent.