“I made three trips to Missouri,” Stratton said. “I had to get out there and look, but I had to go to another state.” She has found employment at a plasma center in St. Joseph, Mo.
However, Debbie Birdsong, director of the career center, said such cases are rare, and most of the roughly 2,500 people that have used its services since it opened last November are in school, trying to find a job or just trying to decide what they want to do, which Birdsong said can take a while.
“Most of the people are still not working,” Birdsong said. “Most of the jobs (available) are less than what they were making … and they would have to drive to Hopkinsville to make less money or Murray or Clarksville.”
Stratton said one of the reasons she needs the job she got is because of the insurance it will provide. She has already sold her house. The Missouri native added that she thought that Clarksville, which is next to Fort Campbell, “will be hurting” once more troops come back home.
While most of the people she sees are from Johnson Controls, Inc., there are others who were laid off from American National Rubber, GFB, Applied Hydraulics and even one or two dislocated workers from Princeton, said Birdsong.
The director hasn’t been immune to economic conditions, as her husband was also laid off. And, like so many others that use the center, he doesn’t want to go back to school at his age.
(For the rest of the story, check out this week’s edition of The Cadiz Record.)
