By Suzanne Sprague
FORT WORTH – [Ambient sound of crowded room with man yelling, "Registrations, please!"]
Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 Reporter: They came by the busloads.
[Ambient sound of diesel bus pulling away]
Sprague: More than 7,000 out-of-work Texans crammed the training center at American Airlines yesterday, causing a half-mile long traffic backup. They were hoping to find that one perfect job, or at least something part-time to help them through the holidays.
Lisa Molina, Unemployed Texan: Right now I'm looking for something in the human resources, customer service, and there's a lot of that around here.
Sprague: Lisa Molina lost her job at Enterprise Rent-A-Car almost two months ago. As she looks around at the 150 companies represented at the job fair, like Coca-Cola and the Fire Department, she likes what she sees.
Molina: I think most of them are pretty good, especially for bilingual people - they're offering an extra incentive.
Sprague: Molina is looking for a job paying about $12 an hour. And that's what a lot of employers, like April Reynolds, are offering. Reynolds is a recruiter with MBNA, a credit card company in Addison. She's looking for part-time telemarketers.
April Reynolds, Recruiter, MBNA: We are in full-mode hiring, especially for our evening shifts. It's a great opportunity for anyone who is maybe considering going back to school with a changing job market - you know, go back to school, and still have the ability to work part-time and make a very good income while doing it.
Sprague: But many of the recently laid-off were better-paid professionals with benefits and a union to represent their interests. Former American flight attendant Farid Nia isn't very impressed by the jobs being offered to laid-off workers.
Farid Nia, Laid-off Flight Attendant: I checked the other vendors. Most of them, we call, like, regular job, typical, regular, telemarketing, boring jobs and personally, I wouldn't be interested in any of them.
Sprague: But Nia is interested in a job at Lockheed Martin. The Fort Worth defense manufacturer recently won the Joint Strike Fighter contract, which could mean up to 4,000 new jobs in North Texas over the next three years. Nia was waiting in a line spiraling down two flights of stairs to speak with someone at Lockheed.
Nia: I have AutoCAD experience - that's computer design - and I thought maybe I would be a good candidate for Lockheed Martin; and of course they're a good company to work for. Sprague: A job at Lockheed would mean a big career change for Nia, who's been a flight attendant for 10 years. But Carmen Courtney with The Workforce Network says a lot of laid-off workers, especially ones from American Airlines, should expect that.
Carmen Courtney, Deputy Director, The Workforce Network: One of the things we're having, for example, is they're having some of their reservationists laid off. It's going to be extremely difficult for them to find that kind of employment because they could find some equivalent comparable jobs, say in the travel industry, but the travel industry is also suffering; so in a number of cases, what people are going to need to do is, they're going to need retraining and redirection of their careers.
Sprague: But that retraining won't come quickly, so Courtney says many laid-off workers are feeling particularly stressed right now and are eagerly waiting for Congress to decide whether to extend unemployment benefits for an additional three months. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.