Roughly a dozen employers looking to fill 225 positions welcomed job seekers to the Knights of Columbus Hall in Tilbury Monday.
The event was put on by Chatham-Kent Municipal Economic Development Services and was scheduled to run from 11:30am to 6:30pm Geoffrey Wright, who helped organize the event, said they were forced to open doors early.
"There were people here waiting at around 10am in the morning looking for interviews," Wright said. "We weren't quite set up, but we opened up early to be respectful of peoples time. it's been a good steady flow all day long. There haven't been thousands of people, but there's definitely been hundreds."
Wright said there was a wide range of jobs available from physical labour, to trades and service industry workers. He added people coming in were asked to bring resumes and many were getting hired on the spot as employers were looking to fill all 225 positions.
Wright said the municipality only holds about three to four job fairs a year, but with how successful this one went, he is getting requests from other areas.
"I've had several companies from Chatham, Ridgetown, Wallaceburg and Dresden area contact me and ask how they can get involved in a job fair," Wright said. "They want to host one in their area, so stay tuned. Where there's a critical mass it makes sense to hold them."
Wright said now that students are off school he really wanted to emphasize trades as an option for them. He added it is really important for parents to get involved in their children's future.
"We know that parents who are involved in their child's career path, [the children] tend to have highly successful careers," Wright said. "Manufacturing day is coming up here the first Friday in October. It is designed to connect students with employers and show them what happens behind those four walls."
Although Wright hoped to fill all positions at the job fair, anyone who missed the event and was still interested in obtaining employment could visit the website. He encouraged employers who didn't fill positions to post jobs on the site and added the municipality would be happy to try and help those looking for employment regardless of if all the positions were filled.