Local Companies Hiring; Unemployed Workers Weigh Encouraging Jobs Numbers
BOSTON (CBS) - While President Obama and Mitt Romney use Friday's new unemployment numbers to boost their campaign closes, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in Massachusetts for whom the headlines hit home.
"My job ended up in India," unemployed financial analyst Jim Antonio said. "I didn't think it would be a year. I thought it would be a lot sooner."
He's among more than 12 million Americans still looking for work.
Michael DiSabatino worked at Borders book store for 16 years until it went out of business. He's also looking for work.
"I've been unemployed for just over a year," he said. "When I first started looking, there didn't seem to be any interest at all, but now there does seem to be interest."
That new interest may be a good sign.
Friday, the U.S. Labor Department announced unemployment rose to 7.9 percent. But there are 171,000 new jobs out there.
"We are seeing some very good hiring happening in the small midsize companies," said Joan Cirillo, who heads up Operation Able. It's an agency in Boston that trains and helps people find jobs.
"There are opportunities out there," says Cirillo.
Kronos Inc, in Chelmsford is one of them. The company's CEO Aron Ain, says he's looking for IT, sales, and service professionals as well as engineers and accountants.
"We're a growing company, an expanding company; we need people to help us do that," he said.
Kronos has 200 positions to fill worldwide; about 60 of them are in Massachusetts.
While that's music to the ears of the unemployed, they say they'll believe the numbers when they get a paycheck.
"I don't pay much attention to the statistics," said DiSabatino, as he looked over internet job boards. "But things do seem to be looking up, from personal experience."
