JOB : Job Referral Service Opened at City Hall

People usually stop by City Hall to pick up a dog license or a building permit, but now Bell Gardens residents can go there to search for a job.

With assistance from their neighbors in Commerce, Bell Gardens officials recently opened a job referral office for residents. The effort is designed to help reduce joblessness in the city, where unemployment is almost twice the national average.

The office in the basement of City Hall is linked by computer to a job list compiled by the City of Commerce, which has been operating its own referral service for more than a dozen years and has placed about 500 people in jobs every year.

Most of the jobs available through the city’s office are clerical, warehouse, or sales positions and pay at least minimum wage and up to $16 per hour, said Adriana Ulloa, senior administrative analyst in Bell Gardens.

The unemployment rate in Bell Gardens, a city of 43,000, is about 13%, Ulloa said. According to 1993 statistics from the state Department of Finance, the median family income in the city was $23,819.

Ulloa said many Bell Gardens residents were having a difficult time finding transportation to Commerce to make use of that city’s job referral office. Commerce officials decided to help establish the Bell Gardens office so that the two cities will not have to compete against each other in the job market.

“For them to develop something brand new, it would take five to seven years . . . and they would compete with us,” said Robert Chavez, social services manager in the City of Commerce.

Now for the first time, unemployed residents in Bell Gardens can make an appointment locally to see a public employment counselor. Ulloa said that it only takes about 15 minutes for people to add their names and other relevant information to the computerized list. Like a dating service, the computer matches the applicant’s skills with job openings.

In addition, the new computer system in Bell Gardens can print a polished resume for each job-seeker who uses the free service.

Information: (310) 806-7700.