Pima County Business Services Team helps local magnetics company with hiring issues

TUCSON, Arizona — While management at Integrated Magnetics was very happy with the move of their manufacturing facilities from Los Angeles to Tucson, looking for and hiring the right team was difficult. They came to Tucson in 2012 as a division of the Integrated Technologies Group (ITG) of companies, which designs and builds mission critical magnets and magnetic assemblies, primarily for the aerospace, energy, medical, R & D and semiconductor markets.

Managers were filling jobs by using staffing agencies, a very expensive proposition, particularly if those hires ended up leaving after relatively short periods of time.

As business started to ramp up in mid-2016, hiring a good team became increasingly urgent. “They were not getting the right people and were having heavy turnover,” said Nils Urman, who heads to Business Services Team for Pima County’s ARIZONA@WORK-Pima County One-Stop Career Center. “There was a huge amount of frustration on their part.”

That’s when Sun Corridor, which promotes economic development opportunities in southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, connected Integrated Magnetics with the One-Stop’s business services team. The group works regularly with employers on staffing needs, connecting them with trained job seekers.

When the One-Stop team learned of Integrated Magnetics’ issues just before Veterans Day, “we did a rapid recruitment,” said Gerri Brunson, part of the business services team. “We had just had a veterans’ job fair so we had a slew of resumes.”

Brunson and a colleague sorted through the resumes, even pre-interviewing some of the job-seekers, before sending candidates to the company for formal interviews. The company has hired seven or eight employees with about a dozen more positions yet to fill.

Anil Nanji, president of the Integrated Magnetics group based in southern California, said some of the workers they hired in Tucson came in well-qualified for their positions. Others were hired with on-the-job (OJT) training funds, which enables the employer to teach the skills required for a particular occupation while splitting the cost of the employees’ wages with the One-Stop for the first three months.

“We found it difficult to get qualified responses from ads we placed in career sites and in local newspapers,” Nanji said. “Hiring through agencies is very costly, especially on a continuing basis. Gerri was extremely helpful and pointed out OJT programs that are available and referred several prospective employees to us.”

Urman emphasized that his team is in the business of supporting employers in Pima County. “We want them to grow here and STAY here,” Urman said. “That’s why we connect employers with training programs, apprenticeship opportunities, job fairs and other resources so they can find qualified workers.”

That’s good news to Nanji, whose company still has openings for milling and turning machinists, precision surface and cylindrical grinders, and mechanical and electrical assembly and test personnel.

“We are always looking to add good team members,” Nanji said. Interested job-seekers should contact Gus Rivera at gusr@intemag.com.