Community held up as example of what’s working
“There’s an amazing story to be told about Community Regional Medical Center. They’re hiring. They’re hiring at a rate of about 50 people per week,” the mayor said at June 19 news conference on the hospital’s 58-acre downtown campus.
The California Employment Development Department released the latest unemployment figures showing California had hit an all-time high of 11.5%, as another 69,000 jobs disappeared. Fresno County’s jobless rate now stands at 15.4% and the City of Fresno rose to 14.5%.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though, the mayor said.
Community Medical Centers has hired 1,000 new employees in the past nine months and is looking to hire another 320 right now, said Ginny Burdick, Community’s senior vice president of human resources.
While more than half those job openings are for registered nurses, the others’ range from entry-level housekeeping to data entry clerks, to clinical positions in radiology and speech pathology, Burdick said. She urged people to get additional training and education to qualify for those positions. More than two-thirds of the jobs filled last year at Community pay more than $50,000 annually.
"None of us knows what the economics are going to be like tomorrow," Burdick said. “All of you can read in the paper what’s happening to health care, what’s happening with reimbursements. But I can tell you today we are looking for individuals who believe in quality, who believe in patient satisfaction and patient care."
The mayor talked about Web sites with job listings and job placement agencies ready to place the right skilled people into local jobs.
“There’s a lot of bad news casting a shadow over us, almost every day, and certainly today when these types of unemployment numbers come out,” Swearengin said. “But today, we’re shining a light on the good things that are going on and the positive outlook many have about turning our economy around.”
This story was reported by Erin Kennedy. She can be reached at ekennedy@communitymedical.org.