Now Hiring
By Joy Scott - Shelby Star
May 10, 2004

This is a story about the status of jobs in Cleveland County. But it's not about layoffs —it's about hiring.

“It's definitely a turnaround in the economy,” said Dale McKillop as the reason his company, Mayflower Vehicle Systems in Grover, will add 45 new jobs at the end of this month.

The company makes truck cabs bodies for Mack Trucks owned by Volvo. Since the beginning of this year, the company has had an upsurge in the sales of its Class 8 trucks, McKillop said. He estimates the company's sales will be up by 25 percent over last year.

“Our volume has been really low over the last three or four years,” he said. “I've not seen this much (increase) since 1999.”

Mayflower will add 45 new jobs to the second shift, he said.

Mayflower isn't the only company adding jobs, according to Antwon Keith, manager of the Cleveland County branch of the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina.

The Wal-Mart Distribution Center is hiring, and could grow its staff to more than one thousand workers, Keith said. Universal Manufacturing Group will also be interviewing applicants at the ESC office this week, he said.

Eaton Corp., Cleveland-Yutaka and Curtiss-Wright Flight Systems are hiring as well, he said.

The ESC took on more than 150 applications for Eaton May 1. Applications were taken for Curtiss-Wright the week of April 26. More than 100 people inquired about the jobs, he said. Last week, the ESC began taking applications for Cleveland Yutaka and Keith expects to have more than 100 applications for those positions.

Keith didn't know the exact number of hirings among these three companies, but said “compared to the applications they're getting, they don't have a hundred openings” at each. “We're still faced with the reality we have more applicants than we have jobs.”

Although there are expansions, Keith said there's a 10-to-1 chance of landing a manufacturing job in Cleveland County in many instances.

Eaton, Curtiss-Wright and Cleveland Yutaka are looking for applicants with a high level of manufacturing background, he said. Eaton and Cleveland Yutaka, for example, are interested in machinists, he said, with CNC experience.

“It's an employer's market right now. If you remember pre-2000, it was an employee's market. Companies were lowering their standards. You had more jobs than you did applicants at that time. Now you see companies are raising the bar.”

In the past three years, there were 23 instances of layoffs in Cleveland County, said Keith and more than 3,000 people affected by the job losses.

Cleveland County's current unemployment rate is 8.8 percent, according to ESC data. Last year this time 10 percent were unemployed.

“You're always going to have to rely on your companies that are already there,” Keith said.

“Thirty four percent of the jobs in Cleveland County are manufacturing,” higher than the state average, he said. “We're always going to heavily rely on manufacturing.”

The Employment Security Commission is located at 404 E. Marion St. in Shelby. The phone number is (704) 480-5414.