Ottawa County’s unemployment rate is tied for second highest in the state of Ohio at 17.3 percent and it took yet another hit on Tuesday when Silgan Plastics in the Lake Erie Business Park announced it was closing its doors.
According to Ottawa County Improvement Corp. Director Jamie Beier Grant, the announcement Tuesday morning came as a complete surprise, not only to her office but to the 150 full-time employees and 27 part-time at Silgan as well. An unconfirmed date for the final closing has been reported to be June 30.
Silgan’s closing follows a series of blows to the manufacturing community in Ottawa County since the early 1990s. First came Standard Products and its 500-plus jobs, followed by UniRoyal, Celotex and now Silgan.
So, with local unemployment so high, and another major local employer closing its doors, news of an entity that is hiring at decent wages becomes BIG news.
Every 10 years the federal government must count to see how many people there are in the United States. One of the people who has become involved with the U.S. Census Bureau is Denny Peto, a longtime local resident. Peto is the local “test giver” for applicants for a variety of positions available for temporary employment in the census process.
“I have been amazed at how difficult it has been to find and test people in this community interested in taking on a job with the census, particularly with the unemployment rate being what it is,” said Peto.
Jobs with the Census Bureau range from $8.25 per hour for an office clerk to upwards of $19.50 for a field operations supervisor. The most common Field Staff positions will be local “enumerators,” who will earn in the mid-range of $10.75 to $16.50 per hour. Peto confirms that the actual work of counting will begin soon and will go into high gear in the spring.
Applicants must be 18 to be hired. They will also have to take a basic skills test that is administered locally by Peto.
For information on the hiring of local census workers, the U.S. Census Bureau can be contacted by calling 866-861-2010 or online at www.census.gov/detroit.

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