Thousands Attend Baltimore Job Fair

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Thousands of people flooded into the Sheraton downtown for a job fair Tuesday afternoon.  The huge crowd caused quite a bit of chaos.

Monique Griego has more on what happened.

Things quickly started to get out of control after thousands of people showed up to a downtown job fair.  With resumes in hand, job seekers lined the halls of the Sheraton as they waited for a chance to meet with 30 prospective employers.

With Baltimore City's unemployment rate four percent higher than just three years ago, organizer William Hawthorne was bombarded by frustrated job seekers.  Hawthorne has hosted several job fairs for Coast to Coast Careers, but says he's never seen a turnout like this.  His job was to control the line of people coming in.

"There's only so many vendors.  You want to get a personal one-on-one without everybody bumping in," he said.

Various vendors were on hand to take resumes from a wide variety of people looking for work.

Despite the long lines and having to fight this crowd, many job seekers say it's all worth it.

"I've had a number of connections follow up shortly after walking out the door," said one.

The majority of people WJZ spoke with were already employed but looking for a better job that paid more money.