Whether you are unemployed and looking for work or are employed and looking for new opportunities, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center is planning an event designed just for you. Job Fair 6.3 will take place on Wednesday, October 4, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the center. There is no charge to participate in this event, but job-seekers are encouraged to register online in advance at jobfair.sfcenter.org. You must also bring copies of your resume to participate.
Job Fair 6.3 will attract a wide variety of employers with job opportunities for management, customer service, administrative, sales, technology, retail, seasonal, hospitality, and many other positions. The employers at the job fair will include the just-opened Westfield San Francisco Centre, the Kimpton Group, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, Bank of America, PlanetOut, Good Vibrations, Wells Fargo, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Police Department, UCSF, Charles Schwab, Olivia Companies, Ameriprise Financial, and California Pacific Medical Center, among others.
When the center launched the job fair program in February 2004, the unemployment rate was 6.2 percent, and the vast majority of job seekers attending the job fair were unemployed or underemployed. As the program has evolved, and as the unemployment rate has decreased, the job fairs have attracted a larger percentage of employed job seekers. This reflects a growing trend in career counseling/job seeking: It isn't enough just to have a job. Currently employed LGBT people are attending the center's job fairs because they want good jobs with good employers that embrace diversity in the workplace.
In fact, 72 percent of the 2,500 job seekers who have attended the center's job fairs said that they have experienced workplace discrimination. "I work for a very large corporation that prefers to remain blind to the fact that a large percentage of their employees are gay and lesbian. It is good to see that not only do many companies recognize LGBT people, but actually pursue them as potential employees," one participant said.
Because we lack explicit workplace protections, lesbians, gays, and bisexuals often must leave their identities at the door and do their best to conform to fit in. The effects are significant: female same-sex couples bring home 18 percent to 20 percent less income than married couples, and gay men make 4 percent to 7 percent less than their average heterosexual counterparts. Transgender people face severe discrimination and extremely high unemployment rates.
In conjunction with Job Fair 6.3, the center is pleased to be working with the Level Playing Field Institute to collect stories of "corporate leavers" (people who have voluntarily left a job) to find out more about the workplace experiences of LGBT employees and the costs of workplace unfairness for both employees and employers. According to a 2003 Level Playing Field Institute study, 30 percent of Americans believe that LGBT employees don't fit in at their workplace (HOW-FAIR survey).
Level Playing Field Institute is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting innovative approaches to fairness in education and the workplace. Through its Corporate Leavers Research Initiative, Level Playing Field Institute is collecting stories from people who have voluntarily left their jobs. These stories will be used to create agenda-setting statistics on workplace fairness, generate informative media on the costs of bias at work, and develop tools for building inclusive work environments.
If you have a story to share, please complete a virtual interview at: www.corporateleavers.org/lgbt/. If you prefer to schedule an in-person or phone interview, please contact Caroline Barlerin, [email protected] or (415) 946-3055. All stories will be used anonymously without any personally identifiable information.
The bottom line is that people who are encouraged to be themselves on the job are happier and more productive. For the LGBT workforce, that means not having to worry about discrimination, harassment, or glass ceilings due to gender identity and sexual orientation. Come to Job Fair 6.3, and make the center part of your career and job search strategy.
For further information on the job fair, please visit us at www.sfcenter.org/job_fair.php or call workforce development specialist David Bach at (415) 865-5534 or e-mail him at [email protected]. The center is located at 1800 Market Street, at Octavia.
Ken Stram is director of the center's economic development programs. Caroline Barlerin is managing director of the Level Playing Field Institute.