Workforce grants available for ag employers

Through Nov. 28 agricultural employers can apply for grants through a pilot program designed to improve the resilience of the food and agricultural supply chain by addressing workforce challenges farmers and ranchers face.

Cherokee exploring dorm housing for casino workers

As the labor shortage at Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos continues to worsen, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is considering dormitory-style employee housing that would allow it to bring in foreign workers on temporary H2B visas to support its cash cow.

Childcare facilities continue to serve front-line families

As executive orders began piling up throughout March to close schools, restaurants, hotels and all other non-essential businesses, childcare facilities remained open. The essential nature of the business meant that even though it is a place where adults and children gather together in close quarters, it would have to adapt to continue its services.

Grocery workers step up to meet high demand

People stocking shelves and working behind a register never thought they’d find themselves on the frontlines of a global pandemic to ensure the public can continue to access food and other essentials.

Scholarship program aims to keep health workers local

A new partnership between Southwestern Community College and Harris Regional Hospital aims to help aspiring nurses afford their education while bolstering Harris’ ability to maintain a quality staff. 

Plott Creek developers submit site plan

When a controversial text amendment passed the Town of Waynesville Planning Board and Board of Aldermen in back-to-back public hearings almost two months ago, Mayor Gavin Brown told opponents that they’d again have their chance to oppose the development that instigated it. 

Knowing your neighbors: Vecinos health program is a bridge between migrant workers and the outside community

Whittier has been home to Elda Chafoya DePaz and her three children for less than a year, but it’s not their first summer in Western North Carolina.

In November, it will have been 12 years since DePaz, 36, left her native Guatamala to seek a better life in the United States. Life was hard in Guatamala, she said, with poverty everywhere you looked. She worked for a banana company there, tasked with separating 17 bunches per minute from the giant clumps of fruit that come from a banana tree. The work was done manually, with just a knife.

Moving the needle: Cashiers organizes to combat workforce development challenges

Spring can be a scramble at the High Hampton Inn and Country Club in Cashiers. Every year, after a long and quiet winter, the business prepares to reopen its kitchens, its golf greens, its rooms and welcome back the guests as trees leaf out and the cool mountain summer begins. 

SEE ALSO:
• Larger labor pool, longer season make Sylva hiring easier
• Haywood County employers need workers

To meet the challenge, High Hampton’s human resources manager Sydneye Trudics embarks on a rampage of hiring, in a matter of months nearly quadrupling the club’s staff from a cold-weather crew of 50 to a summer peak somewhere north of 180. It’s not an easy task.

Larger labor pool, longer season make Sylva hiring easier

With a bigger local labor pool and a tourism season that wraps around most of the year, hiring in Sylva is an easier proposition than it is for Cashiers businesses — at least, that’s how City Lights Café owner Bernadette Peters sees it. 

Help wanted: Haywood County employers need workers

Although Haywood County shares many economic similarities with Cashiers, it also sees challenges distinct from those of Jackson County.

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