America’s Job Center offers help to jobseekers

On Thursday, March 13, a crowd gathered at the Socorro County Annex Building to celebrate the opening of the region’s new America’s Job Center office. Guests were welcomed with light refreshments and mingled from booth to booth. The occasion, which came to a close with a ribbon cutting, kicked off with guest speakers including Socorro County Manager Andy Lotrich and Giselle Palomares, the one-stop director for the America’s Job Center New Mexico Southwest Region.

“(America’s Job Center) is to help people go back to the workforce,” Palomares said. “Whether they just need a simple mock interview, a resume, where to start looking for jobs, or they’re needing on-the-job training, pre apprenticeships, work experience, or tuition assistance. We help with all of that.”

America’s Job Center partners with other organizations to provide these services, Palomares said. Relocating to the Socorro County Annex building will make their services more accessible to the public, and Palomares said the city manager and his team were instrumental in providing them support.

“The vision is we’re going to keep expanding so that eventually, in the next five to 10 years, we’re going to have additional space that we can utilize for actual hands-on training,” Lotrich said during his talk. “We want to do welding, we want to do fiber optics, we want to do jewelry making.”

For those interested in utilizing or learning more about the resources provided by America’s Job Center, they are encouraged to visit the Annex building at 198 Neel Ave., in Socorro, and talk with Rachel Lucero, talent development specialist for Southwest New Mexico Workforce Solutions, whose office is also located at the Annex.

“We always offer multiple services – job placement, educational training, things like that. But it’s not very voiced here in our county. So anybody that you can send, give them the information. I don’t know all the answers, but I do have a list of people I can call to find out,” Lucero said during her presentation.

Others who spoke at the ribbon cutting were Employment Services Division Director for the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solution Michelle Velarde, Executive Director of the Middle Rio Grande Economic Development Association Kristen Keller, Joshua Stoller with the Department of Workforce Solutions, Operations Manager for the Adult Dislocated Worker Program Chris Ruiz, and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Operations Manager for the Southwest Region Haydee Ramirez.