SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some of the first benefits of last year’s vote in favor of a huge road bond for West Virginia will start to be realized in the days to come. The West Virginia Contractors Association has teamed with Workforce West Virginia and other organizations to stage a job fair Friday at Bridge Valley Community and Technical College in South Charleston.
“We’ll give people an opportunity to talk to contractors, engineers, and suppliers about opportunities and qualifications,” said Mike Clowser, with the West Virginia Contractors Association. “Workforce West Virginia will be there to help people with resumes, interviewing skills and so forth.”
The need for workers, according to Clowser, is in anticipation of a lot of state highway projects which will be going to bid in the months ahead, part of the construction bond program approved last November by West Virginia voters.
For several years, most of the members of the Contractors Association have left the state and taken many of their employees with them. Now, with road work about to step up significantly in West Virginia, they are returning and bringing many of those West Virginia workers home. However, Clowser says they’ll need significantly more people as the work starts to compound.
“The next issue is how do we make sure we have additional qualified people for additional work the Department of Highways will be advertising in the next two to three months,” he explained. “Our members want a qualified, drug-free workforce.”
The event will feature around 50 companies looking for prospective employees. The job fair will be from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Bridge Valley’s campus in South Charleston.