One business stands out among the fast-food joints and mechanic shops that offer quick and cheap oil changes along the Lilburn stretch of U.S. 78.
Royal Flush Plumbing Inc. occupies a bright purple-and-yellow standalone structure, but in recent weeks the paint job hasn’t been the only reason to give it a second look.
“Now hiring experienced plumbers,” the company marquee states.
Last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported that employers advertised more jobs in September (3.4 million) than at any other point in the past three years. Nationwide, business confidence and the related job market appear to be on an upswing.
Economists warn, though, that more openings doesn’t necessarily equate to more employment. Hiring has been tepid. And one must possess skills to meet employer needs, which brings me to Sharon Hall. For the past few years, she’s worked as a dispatcher and de facto office manager for independent plumbing businesses. Plumbing dispatchers arrange schedules and coordinate which plumber goes to which job. They keep records and sometimes maintain logs that relate to vehicles and equipment.
Efficiency and customer satisfaction are paramount. Hall, with seven years’ experience, said she excelled at a job she enjoyed.
Four months ago, though, she was laid off from a local, family-run plumbing outfit when business slowed to a trickle. The news was delivered days before July 4, ruining the Norcross woman’s holiday weekend.
“They were like family,” she told me. “It hurt [the owners] just as much as it hurt me. When they hired me, they said they had never had someone who could just come in, hit the ground running and keep on going.”
In the Great Recession, no one has to tell Hall it’s tough going in the job market. She figures she contacted about 300 employers, and she followed up on leads and job vacancy tips derived from word of mouth. She knows, too, that employers can be picky, that some help-wanted signs are accompanied with asterisks that can discourage.
Or disqualify.
She recalled a trucking company that posted a dispatcher’s job with a caveat: Applicants had to hold a bachelor’s degree in business management.
“I lost track of how many jobs I applied for,” she said. “I sent resumes and made calls, but lots of the time you don’t even get a response. With this economy, the unemployment rate is higher than [the 14 million on record] because they don’t even count the people who have just given up.”
Hall didn’t give up. She learned through the Georgia Department of Labor that Royal Flush was in search of a dispatcher. She got the job, and started work two Mondays ago. “They treat their customers well and they do commercial, residential and industrial plumbing as well,” she told me at the end of a recent shift. And so far she feels as if she’s working for family.
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