A push to connect local job seekers with more than 300 positions available in local businesses and agencies has spurred two events coming up soon in Salisbury.

First, people will be able to brush up their interviewing and job skills and get other job-hunting advice at at a Community Employment Workshop to be held from noon to 6:45 p.m. Thursday at Miller Recreation Center.

Second, they’ll put their new training to work at a Community Job Fair that will include more than 35 employers from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 1, at Salisbury Civic Center.

The events came about as city officials and community representatives brainstormed about the widespread need for jobs and what to do about it.

“There’s an outcry,” said Ruth Chaparro Kennerly, the city’s human resources director. Over and over, city residents have called for more opportunity and better access to resources.

“We want to be a city that’s active in economic development and can help people get a job,” Kennerly said.

These events — one in the West End area and the other on the east side of town — pull resources together and take them to the people.

With 6.3 percent unemployment in June, Rowan County has more than 4,000 people counted as jobless by the Employment Security Commission. The real number of people without jobs or underemployed is believed to be much higher

Key players among those planning the events have been Kennerly; Tammara Walker, a career services counselor at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College; Rod Kerr, who has been leading the Jobs for Life program at First Baptist Church; and DeeDee Wright, a member of West End Community Organization (WECO).

“We’re trying to grow our community,” said Wright, a longtime community activist.

The murder of nine black church members in Charleston, S.C., this summer shook the nation. Though the Salisbury jobs initiative did not grow out of any one event, the Charleston tragedy gave conversations about race and economic disparity more urgency.

“There are jobs available,” Wright said, but people in the African-American community don’t always know about them. The job fair and the workshop should help. “We’re excited about it.”

Wright said people with criminal records need particular help to get past the belief that no one will hire them. They can learn which employers will hire them, depending on the type of record they have, and the best way to talk about their past.

The unemployed often need help figuring out which fields of work may be best for them, said Walker, the RCCC career counselor. Often people who have been laid off are lost, she said.

“They’ve identified themselves by what they used to do,” she said, and can’t imagine doing anything else. An assessment of their talents and skills can help reveal strengths they didn’t realize they had.

That knowledge plus a well-prepared resumé and a confident interview can help a person land a good job.

At the same time, Walker said, career counselors warn people to be realistic. “This is not unicorns and rainbows and cotton candy. This is the real world,” she said, and false hope is terrible.

Kerr said helping people get the right job is crucial. Seventy percent of the people who go to work hate their job, he said — a terrible waste, considering that people work as long as 50 years, 10 hours a day, five days a week.

But lacking a job can be even worse, Kerr said, like being a violinist without a violin. “You can lose sense of who you are, with no direction or sense of purpose.”

In addition to the city, RCCC, Jobs for Life and WECO, others involved in bringing the events together are RowanWorks Economic Development, D2C, Rowan-Salisbury Schools, NC Works Career Center and the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce.

Employment workshop

The Community Employment Workshop at Miller Recreation Center, 1402 W. Bank St., will actually present three 75-minute workshops four times throughout the day: resumé writing; interviewing skills; and personality, communication and conflict skills, or how to be “the ideal employee.”

All three will be presented at noon, 1:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Free child care will be available for children ages 4 to 12. Free transit rides will also be available through Salisbury Transit.

Community agencies that will have booths on site include the Department of Social Services, the Hefner VA Medical Center, Vocational Rehab, SmartStart, the Salisbury Housing Authority, the Salisbury-Rowan Community Action Agency, Jobs4Life and NCWorks.

For more information or to RSVP, call 704-638-5217 or email humanresources@salisburync.gov

Community Job Fair

Employers with a total of more than 300 jobs available will be represented at the Community Job Fair at the Salisbury Civic Center, 315 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., on Sept. 1.

The event will start with an employer panel discussion from 10 to 10:50 a.m. Then the job fair will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Among the employers present will be Morris-Jenkins, Decision Path, Maxim Healthcare, Express ProStaffing (filling positions with Amazon), SECU, Ellis Jewelers, Fastenal, RHA Health Care, Gordon Food Service, Cyber Kids Robotics, National Wholesale, Western & Southern Life, Maurice’s clothing store, Avis Budget Group, N.C. Wildlife Resource, Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, The Resource Group, Orkin, LabCorp and the City of Salisbury.

The city bus system will provide free rides to the Civic Center.

For more information, call 704-638-5217 or email humanresources@salisburync.gov