Despite the growing unemployment rate of 10.4 per cent across the province, many students turned up to the University of New Brunswick’s Career and Graduate School Fair on Thursday.
Haley Everett is a fourth-year kinesiology student. Although there were few booths at the fair that catered to her field, she wasn’t worried.
“When I’m done with my education, I feel like I can come out and find a job. I’m not sure if I want to live in the province of New Brunswick,” she said.
“But, I feel like if I did come back and live in the province of New Brunswick…there’s a higher rate to find a job.”
Mike Cottreau studies mechanical engineering at the University of New Brunswick. He isn’t as certain that he will find a job in the province.
“I know most engineering jobs are out west, so I’m assuming I’m going to have to follow the jobs.”
The employers seemed to be mostly hiring on an “as needed” basis. They were getting a look at any potential employees, as well as showing the students what opportunities there were.
“Obviously, the students who have graduated are coming to see what’s available to them,” a spokesperson for the Irving refinery, Jennifer Gillis said.
“But, I like seeing a lot of students that are even in their first or second year that aren’t even…looking for full time, but they’re seeing what’s out there, they’re seeing where they could work.”
Aside from big businesses, there were several graduate schools and even some non-governmental organizations.
Melissa Basque came to the fair representing Enterprise Restigouche, a NGO located in Restigouche, New Brunswick, that helps small and medium businesses find employees.
“We have a few jobs opening for a Bachelor’s and we have jobs opening for people who have no Bachelor’s or who have no degree….We have a lot of jobs opening right now,” she said.
“It’s hard for us to find the right people for the jobs. And we are up north and sometimes people like to stay in big cities.”
Other than the few booths like Basque’s, most of the fair seemed to be geared towards filling science or engineering jobs.
Everett looked back over the booths lining the walls of the Currie Centre.
“[There aren’t any booths], not really for kinesiology. There’s a couple booths, one school, which I’m already applying to anyways, so I already had some background information,” she said.
“But besides that there’s not really a lot for [my] degree.”
