Hiring 100 new employees all at once sounds like a daunting task, but for Shearers Foods Inc. its another day at the office.

In order to handle the deluge of applications it expects, Shearers has a team in Hermiston and another in Brewster, Ohio, the home office, to narrow down the pool of candidates. 

We have a team going out at the end of the month to conduct interviews, said Melissa Shearer, Shearers Foods vice president of communications. We try to do a concentrated effort to meet and find out about a lot of people at one time.

The Hermiston plant currently employs 250 people and produces 170,000 pounds of snacks per day, Shearer said. It also provides its products for other labels, but keeps their identities confidential. 

The company announced Thursday it intends to hire another 100 at its plant on Highway 207. The new hires start immediately, according to the company.

Those new jobs include making potato chips, packaging the chips, maintaining equipment, cleaning the facility and running the warehouse, Shearer said. The company makes potato chips, tortilla chips and rice-based tortilla chips.

The first thing to stress about these types of jobs is … it builds on the core industry in the region, said Bruce Sorte, Oregon State University extension economist. These jobs are desireable, he said, because they are full-time, long-term and definite. 

We see businesses start up and fail pretty quickly sometimes, Sorte said. But, when it is part of your core industry, which is agriculture in this area, the risk is much lower.

Food processing facilities also have a higher multiplier effect in the community because when a facility puts on extra lines, it buys more potatoes locally, Sorte said. This definitely applies to Umatilla County since Shearers contracts with local growers where potatos are plentiful, Shearer said.

In Ohio we get our products anywhere from Florida to Michigan to New York to Missouri,?Shearer said. This is a big agricultural advantage to us.

Sorte also said that right now high-school graduates that havent completed college are having trouble finding work. 

They are tending to slip into the range of high school drop-outs, Sorte said. 

Qualified Shearers applicants must be high school graduates. The positions pay $10-$13 per hour and come with a benefits package.

Shearers decided to expand its Hermiston facility because demand for its product is growing on the West Coast and Hermiston is its only West Coast plant, said CEO Bob Shearer.

Its nice to see the business expanding it shows that theyre confident in the community, Sorte said.

Applications are being accepted online at the careers page of www.shearers.com or by fax at 541-564-7964.