A company that eventually plans to hire 350 people to work in its Elgin distribution center is holding a job fair Friday and Saturday.
iHerb, a 22-year-old California-based business that sells more than 35,000 natural or organic products online, will use the event to hire its first 47 warehouse employees, Regional Human Resources Manager Amy Sidney-Banks said. It’s scheduled for 2 to 7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Courtyard Marriott, 2175 Marriott Drive, West Dundee.
“The plan is to on-board these team members the week of July 16, and then these team members will help us in preparing to open this new location,” Sidney-Banks said. Two more job fairs will follow, with a plan to have 133 people in place by the fall.
“Our goal is to begin shipping orders in early October. We then expect that as we continue to ramp up over the course of the next year or two that we will ultimately employ approximately 350 team members in Elgin.”
The Elgin Development Group helped persuade the company to sign a 10-year lease for a new 257,000-square-foot building at 2650 Auto Mall Drive, off Randall Road and not far from Interstate 90, EDG Director Bob Malm and Economic Development Director Tony Lucenko said.
“It’s as big as two-and-a-half Walmarts,” Lucenko said.
iHerb, which ships nutritional supplements, vitamins, food and beauty products to customers in 180 countries, is excited about the location, Director of Human Resources Ray Kewley said.
“It is a desirable location in a great community. The advantage is that it is close to the freeway and the airport. This location allows us to ship our orders to our customers in the Midwest in one to two days from when the order is placed,” Kewley said.
EDG, which is an arm of the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce, provided important information on the Elgin area that the company used to help make its decision on where to locate its fourth e-commerce distribution center, Kewley said. The three others are in California, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
EDG arranged a meeting in March between city staff and iHerb representatives to discuss technical questions and Elgin’s development process, Malm said. A May meeting covered Elgin’s permit process and the city’s labor market.
One important factor is Elgin Community College’s training program for electric forklift use, chamber President and CEO Carol Gieske said.
The effort illustrates how the EDG can bring together the components needed to provide a one-stop-shop for a business seeking to learn what might be needed to locate in Elgin and what the city might have to offer, Gieske said.
