ASHWAUBENON, Wis. (WFRV) - Thousands of local job seekers went on the hunt for their next career in Ashwaubenon Wednesday. The Department of Workforce Development held its first ever Bay Area Career Expo at Shopko Hall.

Garry Derusha has been on the job hunt for nearly two months.

"I've got about 30 resumes out already," he said, "They told us to bring 30 and I got almost all of them out to people here, all the different employers."

Derusha is retired from the Air Force and looking for a new career in production. Lucky for him, production and manufacturing jobs are on the top of the list of most available jobs in northeast Wisconsin.

"We manufacture aluminum parts for the automotive industry," Allison Donlon, with Nemak said.

Nemak is looking to hire dozens of employees at its plant in Sheboygan. Leaders said they have at least 30 open positions in production.

"We have quite a few positions open across the board," added Donlon.
General labor, quite a few of those openings."

Next on the list is office and administrative support staff. Man Power's Green Bay office is seeing an influx of jobs in this field.

"The bulk of them tend to be more data entry and customer service," Branch Manager Tony McNamara said. "I think a lot of companies are beefing up their customer service departments so of course they're busier. They have more orders, they need more people to handle support in that area so that's been trickling down to us."

With more than a hundred local companies looking for employees, job seekers, like Garry Derusha, are hopeful.

"You just go right to the employer you want to talk to," he added.

Rounding out the top five list of available jobs in northeast Wisconsin are sales, management occupations, and food service jobs.

Organizers of the event hope to hold another expo of this kind sometime next year.