Businesses, organizations working to promote abundance of jobs in Sioux Lookout
Jesse Bonello - Staff Writer
Sioux Lookout and area residents browsed local job opportunities during a meet and greet at Tikinagan Child and Family Services on July 31.
The meet and greet allowed people to meet Tikinagan Child and Family Services staff, learn about their services, and view their available job opportunities.
“We’ve had a good number of people come in to check out our listings, and they were asking a lot of good questions,” said Illa Meekis, Prevention Services Supervisor at Tikinagan Child and Family Services.
Tikinagan Child and Family Services have hosted similar job outreach events before, which they said were successful, but this was the first time they’ve had one in Sioux Lookout.
“This is the first one we’ve done here in Sioux Lookout, but we’ve done a number up north in the communities we serve. We just did North Spirit Lake First Nation and we’ve done Deer Lake First Nation, Sachigo Lake First Nation, and Marten Falls First Nation. We’ve done this in around ten communities now,” said Rachel Tinney, Associate Executive Director at Tikinagan Child and Family Services.
“When we were in Deer Lake, we were able to do interviews on the spot. That was successful, so we’ve had the new employees come out for orientation,” said Meekis.
Tinney said that currently Tikinagan Child and Family Services has a variety of openings that range from all levels of experience.
“There is a lot of openings here for all different levels. We do training here so you don’t necessarily have to come in knowing a lot about Tikinagan… We train you on the job here,” she said.
Tikinagan Child and Family Services’ meet and greet is just one of many job outreach initiatives that are ongoing in Sioux Lookout and surrounding communities.
Earlier this year, more than 200 students had the opportunity to explore future jobs and career paths during an annual career fair hosted by Pelican Falls First Nations High School on Feb. 14.
Just a couple months later, hundreds of surrounding area students, ranging from grade seven and up, also explored opportunities for their future during the annual Lac Seul Career Fair at the Lac Seul Events Centre on May 1.
In a Sioux Lookout Bulletin article from April 24, Chamber of Commerce Treasurer Christine Hoey shared that the Sioux Lookout Chamber of Commerce is working to promote job opportunities from within their business members. The Chamber of Commerce attended a career fair at Lakehead University in February along with setting up a booth at Confederation College’s Thunder Bay Campus in March, where they promoted available job opportunities in Sioux Lookout.
“Sioux Lookout has around 200 jobs available, and there’s just not enough people to work so, what we decided as a group, is that we would try to be involved with more career fairs and help our members try to find people that would be willing to relocate to Sioux Lookout to work… We were really impressed with the feedback we got back from the students. We explained that they would have to relocate, but they were interested because they didn’t seem to have as many opportunities in some of the other towns,” Hoey shared in the article.
According to Sioux-Hudson Employment Services, Sioux Lookout currently has plenty of available employment opportunities.
“There are a lot of jobs… We’ve always had a lot of available jobs in Sioux Lookout but, right now, it does seem quite high,” said Christine Best, Financial Administrator at Sioux-Hudson Employment Services.
“There’s a wide array of jobs available from your professional down to more labour and service industry. There are lots of available, different, jobs. I know places like Tikinagan will even train you and educate you, if needed, so there are those opportunities as well that employers do give,” Best added.
Sioux Lookout and area job listings can be found on Sioux-Hudson Employment Services’ job board. As of right now, Sioux-Hudson Employment Services has 136 job listings on their website www.siouxlookoutjobs.com. They also have a physical job board at their office, which is located at 54 Front Street (Centennial Centre).
“There’s a physical job board out in our resource centre, and it is also on our website. Not all jobs are on our website. People choose not too, so we have some on our physical job board that you won’t see on our website. People can come in and look at the job board. What you see on the board is just a snap shot, and we have the full job ads that employers send to us,” said Best.
“We can help with your resume, gearing the resume and cover letters to those job ads, and we can also help with your job search by narrowing it down and what might work for you based on your interests and qualifications,” she continued.
Job postings can also be found in weekly editions of the Sioux Lookout Bulletin along with on The Bulletin’s website at www.siouxbulletin.com/employment, where postings are regularly updated.