Rich Zahn ordered 2,000 hot dogs to feed job seekers at his construction job fair, figuring he’d have several hundred left over.
He underestimated just how hungry the area’s depleted construction industry is — for jobs.
Before the hiring event kicked off at 10 a.m. Thursday, several hundred people had lined up at the construction fair set up on an open field at Cass Street and Nebraska Avenue. And the crowd continued to grow.
Before the fair ended at 3 p.m., organizers estimated the turnout at between 4,200 and 4,700.
“It’s triple what we thought. We had to get another 1,700 hot dogs,” said Zahn, head of ZMG Construction of Longwood, which is hiring workers for Encore, a $458 million urban renewal project near downtown.
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