Lebanon
The company is offering a 20-hour weekend shift — Saturday and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. — and held a job fair on Saturday at its Etna Road plant to attract those who might be interested in those hours.
“We are growing at such a pace we are trying to find a creative way to increase capacity,” Jeff Horten, vice president of operations at Dimatix, said last week.
“We see this as the best path to avoid a lot of overtime. We might find students or maybe spouses who are not available during the week. We are trying to be creative and find another niche in the labor market. You never know what is out there until you try.”
Horten said the goal of the job fair was to give prospective employees an idea of the work environment, get them comfortable with that environment, answer questions and fill out applications.
The pay for this shift starts at $13 and includes benefits such as medical, dental and vision insurance, paid vacation and sick time, and participation in the company’s 401(k) retirement savings plan.
Tony LaFromboise, senior manufacturing manager at Dimatix, said Saturday’s fair “exceeded expectations.”
“We had a very good turnout. We were hoping to get 40 and it looks like it will be around 60,” he said Saturday as the fair wrapped up.
Not only did more people come than predicted, the majority were rated as very high quality, LaFromboise said.
“I was very pleased by the quality of the applicants.”
He said Dimatix expects to begin offering jobs this week and start training new employees on the weekend shift later this fall. The company will bring them on in “staggered starts” as they are trained by current employees who have opted to change to a four-day, 40-hour week, LaFromboise said.
Horten said the company has seen a 20-fold increase in sales in the last 20 years, and in each of the last four years, the volume of units shipped has increased 20 percent.
The company’s products are sold to manufacturers of large machines for printing on ceramic tiles and products that use textiles, Horten said.
The printing devices can color the tiles, add a design or make the material look like marble or wood. Horten said the textile market is large and includes printing on everything from car seats and clothing to carpeting and draperies.
The company has 275 employees working three, eight-hours shifts, Monday through Friday. Some of those workers choose to earn overtime on weekends.
Horten said the company did not want to change those weekday hours and begin having employees working regular shifts on weekends.
According to the latest report from the New Hampshire Department of Employment Security, the state’s overall jobless rate was at 2.7 percent in August, a .1 percent drop from July.
The figure is even lower locally, at 2.2 percent in the Lebanon area.
Annette Nielsen, an economist at Employment Security, said she does not speak directly with employers but her analysis has shown a number of factors affecting the state’s labor market, including a strengthening economy and an aging population
“It is tough, so you have to find alternatives to bring in more people to the labor force. That may be younger people or more women,” Nielsen said. “You have to be creative and you have to be flexible, which sounds like what (Fujifilm Dimatix) is doing.”
Interested applicants do not need an industrial background, but people with those qualifications are more appealing, Horten said.
“If we can’t find them, then we train them,” Horten said.
“We have trained just about every type of skill set — from retail and food services to the medical field — to a new skill set (for working at Dimatix).”
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
