State-sponsored job fair scheduled in Clarke County

By By Fredie Carmichael / staff writer
March 11, 2003
QUITMAN State officials will try again to help unemployed residents of Clarke County find work by sponsoring a job fair here later this month.
The governor's office and the Mississippi Employment Security Commission will sponsor the Clarke County Job Fair for the second straight year. The event will be 9 a.m.-3 p.m. March 25 at the National Guard Armory in Quitman.
The job fair comes at a time when Clarke County's jobless rate remains in double digits.
Unemployment in Clarke County in December, the latest available statistic, stood at 13.6 percent. Unemployment in the county reached a high of 20 percent in June.
Clarke County's economy has been in decline for more than a year ever since Burlington Industries closed its Stonewall textile and denim plant, putting more than 800 people out of work.
While Clarke County officials continue to scramble to recruit new business and industry to the area, Buckner said he hopes the job fair will help put the jobless to work.
Twenty-two employers have signed up for the job fair, including BellSouth, Nissan North America, Tyson Foods Inc., Van Zyverden Inc. and Parker Drilling Co.