These Fort Worth companies are hiring despite the coronavirus — or even because of it
An Arlington firm needs a mechanical engineer, and is offering a salary of up to $140,000 a year.
A north Fort Worth packaging company has an opening for an entry-level, order-fulfillment position for $12 an hour, with no other benefits.
Even though unemployment is at crazy-high levels across Texas and the United States, lots of companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are hiring workers for all kinds of vocations. The positions offer a range of salaries, benefits and work-from-home options.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week encouraged residents to check out workintexas.com for details on an estimated 500,000 job openings in the state. He suggested that new plans to gradually re-open the Texas economy were on the way.
But Texas’ climb out of the current downturn is sure to be uphill, with not only the coronavirus but also the collapse of the oil industry sapping revenues.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, an estimated 282,520 “job-years” are expected to be lost to COVID-19, according to Waco-based economist Ray Perryman. (A job-year is the equivalent of one person working for a year.)
Industries fight back against coronavirus
The hardest-hit industries include retail, transportation/warehousing and manufacturing.
“The physical well being of the population is of paramount concern, yet the economic consequences must also be aggressively addressed as they too involve substantial human costs,” Perryman wrote in his report.
Even so, there are signs that many companies are stepping on the gas pedal during the pandemic, either because they are on a growth track in spite of the crisis, or their line of work is essential to it. Some of the hardest-hit industries are doing some of the heaviest hiring.
A glance at workintexas.com this week showed 70 positions available in Tarrant County, including the mechanical engineering position at CyberCoders Inc. in Arlington and the entry-level packing position at an unnamed employer in north Fort Worth’s Loop 820/Railhead Drive area.
Of the 70 positions on that website reviewed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 were in the healthcare field — including multiple job openings for nurses as well as a medical technician, researcher and an anesthesiologist.
Six of the openings involved positions at the liquor retailer Total Wine & More — perhaps further evidence that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is on the rise during the coronavirus shutdown.
In Fort Worth, United Auto Credit Corp. is advertising four positions, including one for a “recovery specialist” who based on the job description is needed to helps arrange for automobile repossessions of customers who have failed to pay their loans.
Also, although restaurants have been hard hit by the economic shutdown, workintexas.com shows multiple listings for jobs in the food service industry. Among them: a Firehouse Subs shift leader in Arlington; a server and cook at Town Village Crossing in Arlington; a cook and server at On the Border in Fort Worth; and three positions at Raising Canes locations in Fort Worth and Hurst.
Workforce solutions
Residents looking for a job may also visit Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County, an agency — one of 28 in the state — that operates under the Texas Workforce Commission.
That agency’s website showed a multitude of jobs available in the movement of goods. Hollingsworth LLC, a logistics company, had openings for order fillers and forklift operators at its facility near the Fort Worth-Grand Prairie border. Diverse Staffing had openings at its shipping and receiving warehouse in the Haslet area.
Some Fort Worth-area employers are hiring on a much wider scale. For example, Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-35 stealth fighter jet at its enormous plant in west Fort Worth and operates a missile and fire control plant in Grand Prairie, has already hired 166 new employees and aims to bring in 700 more.
