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Chipotle Is Hiring, But Even Low-Wage Work Can Be Hard To Get

Lewis Wallace
/
WYSO

Chipotle is hiring around the Dayton area—a job fair Thursday in Beavercreek advertised 300 positions coming open this year, and there were 27 postings on the company's site Thursday.

But with around 40,000 people looking for work in the Miami Valley right now, even minimum-wage jobs can be competitive. Chipotle’s average starting wage is around $8.75 an hour—close to Ohio’s minimum wage of $7.95.

Coming out of the Beavercreek restaurant after a job interview, Jasmine Patalon, a college student, says it’s hard to find an entry-level job anywhere.

“I went to the job fair at Menard’s which was ridiculous,” she says. “They wanted to hire like, I think they had 18 positions and there had to have been like 300 people there...so it was really discouraging.”

Clifford Holt of Dayton comes out of Chipotle happy with how the interview went. He’s been unemployed 6 months, and staying with his grandmother to make ends meet. He’s constantly looking—he’s even taking classes at the Job Center on how to write a resume and do interviews.

“I have the interviews, they go great, and sometimes I hear back from them, sometimes I don’t,” he says. “So I guess it’s just really just keeping my head up, and just constantly just grinding, for real.”

Looking for a full-time job, he says, is a full-time job.

 

Low-wage retail and food positions continue to be an area of growth for the Miami Valley, with recent announcements including two new Fresh Thyme stores in the Dayton area, hiring at Home Depot, and a slew of pizza joints planning to add branches.

    

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