Salt Lake County has announced a hiring initiative as part of the county’s efforts to ease the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson made the announcement. The program creates 125 temporary positions throughout several Salt Lake County departments that are involved in dealing with the COVID-19.

“My first directive is to create more than 125 new short-term positions to assist our health department in contact tracing, quarantine and isolation operations, sheltering, testing, logistics and other pandemic support operations,” Wilson said at the news conference. “We will also expand our economic recovery operations with greater emphasis there, and we are reaching out with a specific call to our diverse communities.”

Wilson said the county is especially looking for people who can help with language and cultural barriers in the county’s hardest-hit populations, as well as for people with established contacts in these communities.

Salt Lake County is also looking for temporary employees to fill positions related to hospitality, health care, communications and event planning. Applicants are required to work at least 40 hours a week and work for up to six months. Application for the jobs can be made at slco.org/jobs/. 

“This will be the largest hiring group of COVID-19-related workers deployed in the state of Utah,” Wilson said.