SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — San Diego County's unemployment rate is down to 4.6 percent, the lowest since the beginning of in March 2020.
Now, there's a new online resource to help job seekers make the most of the hiring.
“Everyone's having a hard time finding workers,” said Aaron Byzak, Tri-City Medical Center’s Chief External Affairs Officer.
“We’re hiring a lot of nurses right now, we're hiring a lot of techs, hiring people in our laboratory and radiology departments and all across the organization.”
Byzak estimates the hospital has more than 200 positions open. That’s why he’s especially excited about a new resource for job seekers that launched this week called SOCAL, or Student Opportunities for Career Awareness and Learning.
It's a website that lists about 60 jobs in demand by employers in North County, with video stories told by individual workers in those positions. There is pay information and links to educational resources for people to retrain for the jobs, about half of which don't require a four-year degree.
“This is a great opportunity for all of these different partners to come together to create something that will be a vehicle for getting people into those positions,” Byzak said, nothing more jobs could be added to the site as more employers get involved.
Tri-City is teaming up with the North County Economic Development Council, chambers of commerce in Carlsbad, Oceanside, and Vista, and MiraCosta and Palomar colleges to grow the site.
Kristen Huyck, MiraCosta's Government Relations Director, noted qualifying full-time, first-time college students can attend two years free -- enough time to get the needed credentials to get hired.
“We know that there's a demand for employees now and there will be in the future, and we're seeing the increase in kind of this middle-skill of needing more than a high school degree, needing less than a bachelor’s,” she said, adding the website should also help people explore careers they may not previously have known about.
