The Next Normal: Finding a job

LUFKIN, Texas (KTRE) - The coronavirus pandemic has put many people out of work. That creates stress and the social distancing requirements makes it more difficult to find and apply for new jobs.

Positions are becoming available every day and you can find one.

Workforce Solutions Deep East Texas may have closed their doors to the public, but they remain accessible to customers.

“We continue to provide services both by internet services, by emails, by text messages, anyway that our customer needs to contact us,” Mark Durand, executive director Workforce Solutions Deep East Texas.

One of the first steps they took was to set up a call center. Locations in Lufkin and Nacogdoches are staying open longer Monday through Thursday.

“We extended those hours from 7:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. Plus we have someone that answers the phone so they do not go through any recordings,” Durand said. “So hopefully this relieves some of the frustrations that our customers receive.”

Durand said that while they like to do as much as they can in person, online is the way to go right now.

“We are actually doing a virtual job fair every two weeks,” Durand said. “And we’ve had at least three to five, to seven employers that are participating.”

Durand said the unemployment rate for Deep East Texas dropped from May to June, an indicator that employers are hiring once again.

“Those employers need people right away. They’ve listed their jobs on Work in Texas. We had one week, we had over 50 jobs that were posted. Another week we had over 35, so employers are hiring,” Durand said. “We just need to match that employee with the right employer so that it can be a successful outcome.”

You can visit https://www.detwork.org/ to learn more about the services they can help you with.

Copyright 2020 KTRE. All rights reserved.