A popular wireless communications company will soon create many Chicago retail jobs.

Cricket Communications, Inc., a wireless service, has announced it’s plans to enter the Chicago area market in 2009. This move will add about 2,150 jobs to the local economy, including 350 jobs with Cricket and 1,800 jobs through its dealer partners. Positions are available in the areas of sales, administration and technology, according to an article by Market Watch.

“As we ramp up to launch our flat-rate, unlimited service in the Chicago area, we are excited to build a team with local talent and are actively recruiting in the community to fill several key positions,” John Noelker, regional vice president for Cricket Midwest, said in the article. “During a time of economic instability, launching Cricket’s affordable wireless services means economic growth for our community and reliable wireless service for people previously underserved.”

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A new kind of internship is taking shape at Sara Lee.

Brenda C. Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, recently announced the creation of a program she calls “returnships.” The program is a four-to-six-month paid internship for people who have been out of a Chicago job for three to five years and are currently trying to return to work, according to an article by Forbes.

The company has 10 to 12 internships at its Downers Grove, Ill. headquarters. The internships are in such fields as marketing, accounting, sales, finance and the legal department. The only requirement is that applicants have some experience in that field of work.

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The holidays are coming, and so are a plethora of people looking for seasonal Chicago retail jobs.

While the current state of the economy is slowing and the number of people losing their jobs is increasing, it is expected that competition for seasonal jobs at retail stores will be higher than usual this year. According to an article by CBS2, some retail chains are already beginning to hire for the holiday season.

The Illinois Retail Federation states that most retail chains are hiring, and most are expecting a high number of applications. National chains traditionally add 25 to 40 percent more workers to their staff during the holidays, and most stores will keep those numbers this year despite the economy.

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A popular soft drink company will soon be cutting more than 100 Chicago jobs.

PepsiCo Inc. is cutting 3,300 jobs in total, 120 of those based in Chicago. The city is home to Pepsi’s headquarters for Gatorade, Tropicana and Quaker Oats business units. Of the 120 positions being cut, 100 are in the companies’ West Loop offices, where the majority of workers are located, while the other 20 cuts are at a research and development facility in Barrington.

Gatorade, Tropicana and Quaker Oats employ 2,400 people in Chicago, meaning the cuts will amount to 5 percent of the company’s workforce. The total number of cuts represent 1.8 percent of Pepsi’s global workforce, according to an article by the Chicago Tribune.

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If you’re looking for a law enforcement job in Chicago, it might be useful to know that one-third of the city’s airport police positions are currently vacant.

Currently, police officers are working overtime to help fill the vacancies at O’Hare and Midway airports. There are 77 combined vacancies at the two airports. Of O’Hare’s 177 budgeted positions, 66 are vacant. Midway has 11 of its 57 positions vacant, according to an article by the Chicago Sun-Times.

These figures were found when the City of Chicago submitted a $2.5 billion plan to privatize Midway Airport. Most of the vacant positions are currently being filled with off-duty police officers who are receiving overtime pay. While public safety is not being compromised because of the vacancies, it hasn’t been reported how many of the positions are being filled with off-duty cops.

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