The Neepawa Job Fair, held on February 27, 2025, at the Neepawa Legion, was a huge success. The event saw participation from 15 employers and an educational institution, attracting over 226 job seekers.

Liway Cabrera – Local Journalism Initiative

Organized annually by the Neepawa Economic Development, Neepawa & Area Immigrant Settlement Services, and the Westlake Employment Skills & Services Centre, this year’s Job Fair featured a wide range of job openings, including positions for teachers, accountants, agricultural technicians, administrative staff, and housekeepers. Additionally, with the new hotel set to open in May, there is a significant demand for staff.

NACTV volunteer John Drinkwater was able to interview some of these businesses and talked about the jobs available for our job seekers here in Neepawa.

One of the businesses present during the Job fair was Michelle Gerrard, owner of Home Hardware here in Neepawa. “We have a new location right on number 16 highway that we opened in 2023 and so we are expanding so much so rapidly that we need some new positions. So we are looking for a lumber yard and delivery associate as well as seasonal associates. Seasonal associate is someone that can look after our Greenhouse for us as well as the soil and that seasonal area and then in the fall and winter we flip to Christmas so it’s kinda a fun challenging area and we are also looking for cashiers.” said Gerrard.

Rob Wolfe, DSV Northstar General Manager talked about their company that it has been existence for more than 40 years and currently needing more staff to work in their warehouse.  “We currently are looking for people that are wanting to work in our warehouse, blending and bagging seeds, palletizing,  learning to drive a forkclift and lots of other fun stuff in the forage and seed industry.”

In addition, the business that got a lot of interest during the fair is the newly built Best Western Hotel which will start its operation in May. “I’m Murray Parrot, President of the Best Western Hotel here in Neepawa. I’m one of the 46 shareholders and today we are here at the Neepawa Job Fair and we are taking resumes and interviewing... short interviews with people and will do follow up interviews after that. Because we started in 2017, Julius Sol who is living at one of my houses at that time was waiting for me to open the hotel.. so Julius has got his resume in here but we are probably well over 75 people so far and the line is still not getting any shorter. So it’s a wonderful event and we give credit to our Economic Development Officer Marilyn Crewe for setting this up.”