Hopeful students swarmed the Summer Job Fair at the Kellogg Center on Feb. 18, fighting to land a place in the business world. The numbers were working against them, though.

The expansive Big Ten room was packed. Masses of students and graduates roamed the room and the halls beyond, resumes in hand and eyes ravenously roaming through the crowds. Tables lined the walls and sat in rows through the center, with colorful signs and smiling faces there and ready to greet anyone that wandered close. It was hot and it was stuffy, and all one could see outside was the gray gloom, but it certainly didn’t deter anyone.

Yet even so, the event itself was not everything it once was.

A few booths were left empty, signs left for the companies that typically came, but devoid of any representation. Were they cutting back? Were they no longer able to hire as they once had?

An ominous indication—Ford had a little sign set out for them, but no one to hunt for future employees. There were no banners and no representatives, just a hollow memoriam to their former presence. JC Penny, another company hard-hit by the present state of the economy, also held an empty spot in the swarming room.

Anne Mendels, a Talent Acquisition Manager for Wolverine World Wide, recognized that the economy has affected everyone. 

“I think that from a manufacturing standpoint, we’re going to continue to see manufacturing go away and move offshore,” she said.

Jodi Lutz, store manager of a Lansing Walgreens, gave a similar report for Walgreens.

“We’re not growing as much,” she said. “We’re not opening as many stores as we were in the past, so we’ve slowed our growth rate.”

However, all this was indicative of a larger issue.

According to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor in January, the unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, up 2.7 percent from January 2008. Individually, prospects seemed just as gloomy. The Department listed Michigan’s unemployment ranking at 10.6 percent for the month of December—the highest in the country.

To add some numbers to that, it means that from November to December 2008, Michigan suffered a net loss of 59,000 jobs. That’s over 12,000 more jobs lost than students attending MSU.

What does this mean for college students and graduates looking to enter the job market?

“It’s a tough economy and it’s tough times,” said Sarah Hagen, a campus recruiter from Stryker. “But companies like Stryker are continuing to grow and we’re still hiring. It’s really just about finding those companies that are still out there actively looking for candidates."

She added that while people are always going to want to look outside the state for work, they need to recognize there are still a lot of opportunities inside Michigan, too. However, no one denied the competitive edge the economy has demanded from students.

Hagen noted, however, it might not be all bad.

“It’s good for us as an employer because we can be extra selective and we can really look for targeting the right students—quality over quantity,” Hagen said.

The catch might be that students need to broaden their options.

“I think that if talented people are willing to stay and stick with it here in Michigan, we’ll only benefit,” Mendels noted. “It’s obviously dependent on what we have available for them to work in, so hopefully we have a lot of students who have the entrepreneurial spirit, who are willing to maybe start their own thing versus relying on what’s open here.”

She also noted that sectors dealing with green initiatives, green energy and sustainable resources are still seeing growth.

Hope may also be on the horizon from Washington, D.C. On Feb. 17, President Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus package in hopes of stirring the downed economy. How it will affect the job market in Michigan remains to be seen, however—a fact Lutz was quick to point out, stressing that we need to wait and see specifics before jumping to any conclusions.

The market’s certainly seen better days. The nation, both students and non-students, is hurting. Despite this, Mendels said she still has hope.

“I think kids just need to make sure they know what they’re doing, like the kids here at the career fair,” Mendels said. “Have a great resume, make a great impression, and they should be able to find something.”