BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — With Bakersfield facing a community-wide unemployment rate that is currently above the state average, Bakersfield business Urner's is stepping in to create sustainable jobs for Kern County.
Urner's is a local-owned family business that is providing an economic boost to Bakersfield and throughout Kern County as they have provided 15 additional family waged jobs in the community.
“It’s really to serve Kern County families. That’s been our goal for 102 years and we’re going to keep doing that,” said Cameron Illingworth, vice president of Urner’s.
Illingworth says a site in Northwest Bakersfield alone will bring a minimum of 15 new jobs to the community and in due time they foresee that number increasing.
“Bringing more family waged jobs to Kern county and Bakersfield, that’s important. That goes a long way when there’s sustainable jobs and they pay well above minimum wage and so that’s what we think our big investment to city is and county," said Illingworth.
Illingworth adds that the 31,000 square-foot new store will now be able to serve Bakersfield residents in the northwest area.
“There’s been a lot of anticipation building. All of our employees, we’ve been staffing up for the last few months whether it be in warehousing or in sales," said Illingworth.
"We've been doing that over the past 6 months trying to get ready to open the store. We’ve got a lot of new employees and they’re all excited that we finally got the doors open.”
So far the company has employed about 85 employees across all of their Bakersfield sites combined. Illingworth says they are so excited to provide additional employment opportunities to Kern County.
“To us it’s all about giving back. Bakersfield came through big for us during the pandemic, we stayed open because we’re an essential business and Bakersfield came and really supported us through that time and we were able to through that come through and put this together,” said Illingworth.
For those who are interested in an opportunity of employment at Urner’s, you can find more information about their job openings on their website.
