Humboldt County Jobs

Below are some reviews and links to websites that we hope you will find helpful when searching for jobs in Humboldt County, California. Humboldt County is a difficult place to find a job, especially if you want to live anywhere above the poverty line while working. There seems to be a much larger demand for jobs here than there is supply. As a result, you will not find paid (classified) advertising from most fast food restaurants or other places that you would normally see advertising in bigger cities. They get enough job applications without having to pay for ads. Same goes for many retail positions. Your best bet for finding most jobs in retail in the Eureka, Arcata and Fortuna areas is to actually take a walk around town and look for help wanted signs and notices. The Employment Development Department in Eureka is also a valuable, local resource. Next to hitting the streets though, your best bet these days for finding employment in Humboldt County is doing a job search on the Internet using one of the many websites below.

Local Classified Job Listings

Yahoo! Humboldt HotJobs – One of the most complete job listings you will find for Humboldt County. Local newspaper The Times-Standard uses this employment site for posting it’s own classified job listings. There are other paid job listings as well though. Relatively little spam to speak of and easy to navigate.

Tri-City Weekly – The Tri-City is one of those weekly, free “newspapers” that only contain classified ads and no news. You will find very few legitimate job listings here, most of them being get-rich-quick schemes and such. The site uses “frames”, which makes it impossible to bookmark specific pages of interest and a pain to navigate in general. Poor design, layout and content. It is definitely a last resort type of place to look.

The Arcata Eye – The Arcata Eye is Arcata’s only (weekly) newspaper. I’m not sure if there are more listings in the print edition of the paper, but there sure aren’t many on their website. Most jobs listed here will likely be in the city of Arcata.

National Classified Job Listings

Humboldt CraigsList – Classified ads for jobs throughout Humboldt County. Most of the posts are spammed “job opportunities”, but there are still quite a few legitimate help wanted ads and job listings as well. Probably the most annoying thing about the website (besides the huge amount of spam) is the fact that many employers make use of the anonymous nature of CraigsList in order to hide their identity. This makes it much more difficult to decide whether a job listing is actually legit, or is just a phishing scheme. You will find a lot of ads here that will appear nowhere else, but they are usually from employers that are too cheap to actually pay for advertising, so you probably shouldn’t expect much in the way of salary.

Monster.Com – One of the country’s largest job-seeker sites, it has quite a few listings for Humboldt County, along with a small sprinkling of “opportunity seeker” ads. Many of the jobs you can apply for directly from the website. The biggest drawback of this site is the fact that they lump all job listings for Humboldt County in with jobs in Chico, Ca, which is over 200 miles away. Jobs for locations in-between the two areas (i.e. Redding) do NOT show-up though. Weird, but still useful.

Jobs.Com
– Much like Monster.Com, this website seems to want to lump all job offers for Humboldt County in with that of Chico, CA, which is not even close to being in the same area. I seemed to be able to find more listings using this website than with Monster, though I’m not sure if all the listings are relevant. You will likely suffer from information overload after visiting this site, so be prepared to spend awhile searching through it amid tons of ads.

JuJu – This is one of the more unique job finding sites you will come across. If it worked as well in practice as it did in theory, it would be the most useful job search site on the Internet. The idea is simple… JuJu is an independent “search engine” that scours the entire Internet to find classified job listings. In effect, it aggregates job listings from numerous sources and displays them in a very clean and straightforward manner. You will find job listings here from Internet sources that you probably never would have found on your own. There are a few spammed “business opportunity” job listings, but not enough to detract from its usefulness. Unfortunately, the site suffers from a single fault that seriously limits its value to job seekers. Simply put, JuJu does not seem to have any way to sort listings by date. Therefore, a large number of the jobs listed are weeks or even months old. It also occasionally produces some listings that are nowhere near the location you are seeking.

CareerBuilder.Com – Lots of good leads for jobs. You will have to sift through the “BizOp” posts to find the “real” job listings though. One annoying “feature” about this website is that it will often produce listings for jobs nowhere near the area you choose. So, even if you choose to only look for jobs that are within 10 miles of Zip Code 95501, you will most likely still see ads from companies in Arizona, or even further away. There aren’t many ads here that you will not find duplicated on monster.com, Yahoo! or at the Employment Development Department’s website.

Kaango.Com – The websites of The Redwood Times, Tri-City Weekly and some other publications owned by the parent company of the Times-Standard have recently started using a site titled “Humboldt Classifieds” for their job listings. It simply seems to be a sub-domain of ad aggregator Kaango.com. Strangely, links for job listings seem to lead right back to Yahoo! Hotjobs via a re-direct, which makes it nearly impossible for you to get back to “Humboldt Classifieds” after you’ve clicked through on one of their listings. I’m guessing that this is some sort of feeble attempt by these publications to bypass all of Yahoo’s additional ads. It doesn’t work very well. Save yourself some time and frustration by just going to Yahoo’s site directly, or you can view them on the right-hand side of this page. We update these listings once every hour.

Local Employment Agencies

Express Employment Services – A private employment agency franchise that has an office based in Eureka. As with most employment agencies, you will find many listings from “great employers”, but don’t expect any specific information as to the name of the company, salary or anything that might tend to identify who their clients are. You will have to make an appointment with them if you want to get any real information. Since this is a nationwide website, it takes a few extra steps in order to narrow your search down to the appropriate location.

Sequoia Personnel Services – A local employment agency. Again, don’t expect to see any detailed information on specific jobs without making an appointment and signing some sort of contract. SPS has been around much longer than Express Employment Services has locally and tends to appeal more to local-based businesses.

Local Government Job Listings

Humboldt County Job Application System – Want to work for Humboldt County Government? This is the official website to go to. Most County jobs are not high-paying, but do include full-benefits and a good retirement plan.

State of California – The Vacant Positions Database (VPOS) is a service provided by the California State Personnel Board (SPB). It lists openings for most vacant job positions working for the State of California. With the state’s current budget problems, you might run the risk of getting paid in IOU’s, having your hours cut or simply not getting paid at all. So, if you have to have a STATE job, I suggest that you try looking in another state altogether. Oregon or Washington would probably pay much better and offer much better job security for the same positions.

City of Eureka – With budget cuts that have hit the City of Eureka over the past few years, you won’t find a great number of new job postings at this site. Like most government jobs, the ones that do show up here tend to have more long-term job security than in the private sector. Since approximately 10% of the city’s budget goes to pay for the local zoo, the parks & recreation division seems to have the most job opportunities. There are frequent openings for police officers here, largely due to the fact that Eureka does not pay competitive salaries to law enforcement, either as compared to other parts of the country, or even with police departments a few miles away. Therefore, Eureka typically has a very high amount of turnover for law enforcement positions.

Employment Development Department – This is the official job bank for the State of California’s Employment Development Department in Humboldt County. You will have to register as a “job seeker” in order to view the listings, which requires giving them your Social Security Number. Although it is one of the most complete job listings that you will find for Humboldt County, it is a huge pain to navigate through. Don’t forget your password, because the website will not save it for you as a “cookie”. Whoever designed this website should be fired.

Wiyot Tribe – Employment listings for the Wiyot tribe, near Loleta, CA.

Schools & School District Jobs

HSU Human Resources – Careers available at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. HSU is one of the largest (and best paying) employers in the area. Includes listings for everything from janitors to college professors. Either way, the job application process is the same. Hint: if you want a job that requires ANY kind of skill, HSU expects you to have a college degree. Go figure.

Jobs at CR – If you are looking for a job with College of the Redwoods (just South of Eureka) this is the place to go. CR has jobs not only at its main campus, but in Eureka, Arcata, Mendocino, Klamath-Trinity and Del Norte Counties. As a community college, they do not pay as well as the local California State University (HSU), but definitely pay more than most private sector employers here do.

Humboldt County Office of Education – HCOE doesn’t advertise all of their job vacancies on other websites, so you will have a good chance of finding job opportunities here that you would not see elsewhere. Most vacancies are rather limited in scope though. Expect to mostly find positions for school principals, bus drivers, teachers in specialty subjects and lots of jobs that require you to speak languages in addition to English.

Eureka City Schools – There aren’t a ton of job listings here, but worth looking at if you need a job in the education field. Don’t expect to find many teaching positions, unless they are in highly specialized areas. They always seem to be looking for part-time substitutes though, including Summer jobs and temp positions. There are far, far more unemployed teachers in Humboldt County than there are positions to go around. This is largely due to the fact that our local Humboldt State University in Arcata specializes in liberal arts degrees. Since there aren’t as many things you can do with a liberal arts degree other than teaching, Humboldt County has for at least the past 20 years had one of the highest college educated unemployment rates in the nation.

Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District – The Klamath Trinity Joint Unified School District (KTJUSD) covers the extreme eastern portion of Humboldt County. It includes elementary and high schools in the towns of Hoopa, Willow Creek, Orleans and Weitchpec. It is one of the smaller school districts in the state, and thus has a very limited number of staff positions. Most jobs available seem to be for part-time teaching. They really do not give much info on their website as to available jobs. They do include e-mail links to write to for more information though. Keep in mind, most of these schools are located far, far from Eureka (50+ miles), or any other incorporated cities in Humboldt. Most of these towns are on tribal land (all, except for Willow Creek), are fairly isolated, sparsely populated and you can probably expect pay to be on the VERY low-end, compared to most of the rest of the state. Plan on living far away from town if you take any of these jobs, because roads to these areas are often closed during the Winter. Owning a 4×4 is pretty much required in eastern Humboldt County, so be forewarned.

Northern Humboldt Union High School District – A small school district in McKinleyville, Ca, an unincorporated area just North of Arcata.

More Teaching Positions in Humboldt County

The following school districts in Humboldt County have websites, but do not include details on job openings. Some of them do include e-mail links to the personnel department or human resources contacts though. All of them include name, address and telephone contact information.

Arcata School District – Covers two schools in Arcata, Ca.

Pacific Union School District – One K-8 school, near Arcata, Ca.

The Northern Humboldt Consortium – The Northern Humboldt Consortium of Schools is currently composed of 5 school districts; Northern Humboldt Union High School District, McKinleyville Union School Distrcit, Fieldbrook School District, Trinidad Union School District, and Big Lagoon School District. These districts primarily serve students from Arcata, California to the northern border of Humboldt County.

Private Employer Websites in Humboldt County

St. Joseph Health Systems – St. Joseph’s Hospital is one of the largest private employers in the area. They have facilities in Eureka, Fortuna and around Humboldt County. The same corporation also manages St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County, Ca. They are by far the largest source of healthcare jobs in Northwestern California and operate Eureka’s only hospital and emergency room facility. Nursing jobs are often available for RNs and LVNs as well jobs for emergency room physicians and quite a number of relatively unskilled positions. Their website seems to have a long history of “technical difficulties”. Sometimes you can access their job listings, sometimes you can’t.

SuddenLink – The local cable company in most of Humboldt County. As you would expect, most of the jobs offered locally by SuddenLink involve customer service, sales and technical positions. Most classified ads that the company posts point to this nationwide website. From what I have seen, SuddenLink seems to employ people at the very low end of the wage scale, even for jobs that require technical experience. I’m not sure if they pay higher salaries outside of Humboldt County. It would not surprise me if they paid employees in Northern California substantially less than they do elsewhere.

PG&E – The local utility company. Jobs here are few and far between, unless you plan on relocating.

Sun Valley Group – Website for Sun Valley Bulb Farms, which has locations throughout Humboldt County. The site does NOT include any actual job listings. It does include employment applications and HR contact info though. Se Habla Espanol!

KEET-TV – Job opportunities at the county’s only public television station. This is a very small community TV station, so full-time positions are few and far between.

Eureka Television Group – ETG currently owns more than half of the broadcast television stations in Humboldt County. They include affiliates for CBS, Fox, Univision, My Network and the CW. The few jobs they have available are listed here. Ownership is not local, to the best of my knowledge, and they produce very little, if any, original, local programming. None of their TV stations air local newscasts, so there are no job opportunities for on-air personnel, camera operators or the support staff one would normally associate with a “real” TV station, let alone five of them. When jobs do appear, they are generally for sales staff, which make most of their salary on commission, office personnel and low-level technical jobs.

KIEM-TV – You will need to navigate to the employment page yourself, as this site uses “frames”, which makes it problematic to bookmark specific pages. The closest thing we have to a “real” TV station in Humboldt County, KIEM has a full-time news staff and is the only TV station in the area that produces a local newscast. The station has a much higher “churn” rate for on-air talent than most TV stations, probably due to the low pay available relative to other markets. The technical staff is bare-bones, as compared to most TV stations that air live news programming, so there are not as many job openings here as you might expect. As with other local broadcasters (TV & radio), most job opportunities tend to be in sales.

KAEF-TV – The local ABC TV affiliate. Since it is merely a rebroadcast of an ABC station in Redding (KRCR), you will find few (if any) local jobs available here. They really do not even have a website for the station. There are references to it on the website (linked to above) of KRCR in Redding, Ca though.

PALCO – aka: The Pacific Lumber Company. Only gives link to e-mail address for more information on their website. Fresh out of bankruptcy. Don’t hold your breath when it comes to long-term job security.

MONERIS – Who is Moneris? In 2008, Moneris acquired Humboldt Merchant Bank in Eureka, Ca, after it’s parent company was shut down by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The parent company was another one of those huge bank failures that taxpayer’s will be bailing out for years to come. Anywho, the new owners have none of the old baggage of the former owners, and seem to be financially stable. Perhaps, it is because they are based in Canada, where banking regulations are obviously much stricter. The Moneris website lists job opportunities at all of their locations, which include branches in Toronto, Illinois and Quebec, in addition to jobs here in Eureka. They do offer some decent paying jobs in the area. Perhaps not competitive with similar positions elsewhere in the country, but decent for here, at least.

Specific Industries

Dice.Com – If you are looking for a position in the computer or IT fields, this is one of the largest websites dedicated to advertising these jobs. You will occasionally find some local positions as well as a number of jobs that allow telecommuting.

Federal Government Employment

U.S. Army Civilian Personnel Online – This job search website was featured in a recent article highlighting civilian jobs available both nationally and internationally in the U.S. Army. According to the article, the jobs pay well and have excellent benefits. Unfortunately, I was unable to verify any of this, or find out if the Army had any jobs in Humboldt County, due to the fact that their search form was not working at the time of this writing. Apparently, the ARMY is desperately in need of competent IT personnel!

This website includes jobs, employment listings and information for Humboldt County in Northern California. If you are doing a search by Zip Code, you will want to include 95501 and 95503 for Eureka and 95521 for Arcata, the county’s two largest cities. Some jobs also appear from nearby Trinity, Mendocino or Del Norte County. Included in Humboldt’s listings are the cities of Eureka CA, Arcata CA, Fortuna CA, McKinleyville, Ferndale, Rio Dell, Trinidad, Garberville, Redway, Willow Creek, Hoopa and others.

For more news and information about Humboldt County, please visit our main website at Humboldt Online .