OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Last month, UW-Oshkosh laid off over 100 employees. In the wake of the layoffs, the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board or FVWDB, announced a private job fair for those impacted, which took place Monday.
“Unfortunately, I was affected by the UWO layoffs so currently I’m just trying to figure out what I can find in the IT space and try to get back up on my feet,” Bradley Suprenand said.
Suprenand used to be involved with device support at the university. Then in October, he was notified of a layoff.
“It’s a time when they weren’t necessarily expecting to be in a job search, but we wanted to help give them a kickstart in that job search, so we reached out to some of the companies we know,” Bobbi Miller, business services manager with the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board said.
And on Monday afternoon, Suprenand was one of dozens who took advantage of a job fair put on by the FVWDB
“There have been a few good opportunities that I’ve gotten to look and have piqued my interest,” Suprenand said. “Hopefully they pan out.”
For FVWDB, the job fair is part of rapid response efforts targeting recently laid off workers. Those efforts also including working with individuals to update resumes and complete skills and interests assessments.
“We’ve got some education entities here,” Miller said. “We’ve got some private industry companies that are here and we know from our rapid response meetings that some people were like, ‘I just want to try something totally new.'”
From the employer perspective, the layoffs serve as a chance to attract people to open positions.
“I think I have at least 15, 16 resumes I’m going to take back and share them with our supervisors,” Outagamie County HR Recruiting Specialist Julie Micke said.
29 employers were present, ranging from school districts to the city of Oshkosh to Outagamie County.
“We have a lot of opportunities that can help take those transferable skills and bring them into what we do here because we do a wide variety of things,” Micke said. “We have over 30 different departments.”
So far, UW Oshkosh has confirmed 140 staff layoffs, which will go into effect on January 20th.
Any workers who have been laid-off by their employer are encouraged to call FVWDB at (920) 997-3272.
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