Posted on 06/27/2004 2:04:13 PM PDT by A. Pole
NEW YORK - After 20 months of looking for work and sending out hundreds of résumés, Jeffrey Schwab has given up trying to find another job as a draftsman. He's now taken early Social Security and is considering whether to sell his Bellingham, Wash., home to move to something smaller. "From what I can tell, there's not much to look for," says Mr. Schwab, who has 35 years of pipeline-design experience. "I am standing around with nothing to do."
Even though the economy has created 1.2 million jobs since January, some 265,000 people have dropped out of the job hunt during the same period. They would join some 19.1 million Americans in the same situation as Schwab, who are unemployed and not looking for work largely because they are convinced they won't find it. This figure, at a record level, is up 44 percent from 10 years ago.
If the job market continues to improve, this large number of people could decide to get back in the job market - which would hold the unemployment rate relatively high, even as new jobs are created.
"If this flow of nonworking Americans were to reverse, it would send the jobless rate toward 8 percent," says John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago.
That would certainly be the case in Pennsylvania, agrees the state's governor, Edward Rendell (D). The official unemployment rate is 5.4 percent, but it's "much greater," Mr. Rendell says, when factoring in men who have been cut off welfare and never got back into the workforce "and as a result never show up in the unemployment rolls."
Sometimes a rising jobless rate, says Bob Brusca of Fact and Opinion Economics in New York, can be a positive sign of a vibrant labor market that's luring more people in than it can absorb. But "that change has not occurred."
Many workforce dropouts in the age group of 25 to 54 have spent years working in shrinking industries, such as telecommunications or software development. "There are many people who have been downsized - a permanent job loss - that are taking a long time to return to work," says Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project in New York. "They have had such a hard time when they are looking that they have given up, even though they don't necessarily want to."
In Tiffin, Ohio, that's the case with Merree Phillips, who lost her job a year ago as a development officer at Heidelberg College. She says that at times frustrations sap her motivation. "Some weeks you don't work as hard since it's so easy to get discouraged and you wonder whether it's worth it to keep pounding your head against the wall," she says. "I have not gotten to the interview stage of any job I have applied for."
Ms. Phillips thinks that the job market is actually shrinking in her area. A year ago, she says there were 20 to 25 listings for professionals in the want ads in The Courier, a Findlay, Ohio, newspaper. Sunday, the online edition had only four such ads. "I don't want to come off as a slacker, but there aren't even any decent prospects," she says.
Some workers who have officially stopped looking are going back to school. Enrollment at the nation's community colleges, which offer much of the job retraining, is soaring.
One of those who has gone back to school is Penni Neff, a divorced mother of a teenage boy who lost her job at a hospital.
Now, she's in school to become a licensed practical nurse.
"Gee, I don't know why people throw their arms up and say 'I give up!' " she writes in an e-mail.
"Sorry, I'm not doing it, but I get doors slammed all the time," says Ms. Neff, who has four months left to finish her courses before she starts another training program to become a registered nurse.
Neff's move is probably in the right direction, says Mr. Challenger. "She's evidence of the migration of going from the old economy to the new, particularly jobs that are service-related," says the outplacement guru. He says other areas that the long-term unemployed should consider include international business, housing construction, real estate, utilities, and the energy industry. "People often pigeonhole themselves," he says. "We're seeing almost 50 percent of people changing industries, but not functions."
Challenger adds that hiring someone who has been out of work for a long time can be rewarding for employers as well. "[The new workers] are really hungry to get back, so you are getting someone who is really committed and is not going to move quickly as a free agent," he says. "You can save people's lives and get very committed employees that way."
A job would certainly help someone like Schwab in Bellingham. His wife, who was also laid off, is now working 30 hours a week at a store, but she does not get benefits. They are now considering all options, including the sale of their home. "We needed a bigger house to care for my wife's mom, who had Alzheimer's disease," he says. "But it's more expensive to pay for and heat."
Living in Connecticut on 30K a year as an adult with a house/Mortgage is poverty wages.
*** That's about what my mother makes and manages to keep down a house on Long Island with LI property taxes.
Did your mother buy her house recently?
I doubt it.
Not on 30K salary per year.
No of course not, which is why we are not/cannot move. We moved from Jamaica,Queens to Long Island twenty four years ago and the house cost $40,000 now it's worth $350,000.
I'll add that there's a real estate meltdown on Long Island, and what's happening is A LOT of illegal renting because people can't pay mortgages,etc.
I am sick of people telling me I am whining because I see what is happening as a different reality than they do.
My plugging away proves I am not just whining, but people do not understand that my opinion carries as much weight or more than most people here who only lost one job in their life and then got hired after only 6 months of 'desparate' unemployment.
I have been in this for years, not just since 2001, I only ad that job for 1.5 years; before that, I had 1 job each year before from 1995 to 1999 when I got that Telecom job that laid me off in 2001.
So many of the local employers up here have sent their work to China, the company I do drafting on the side for has all their machining done in China. The spring and stamping company I worked for moved their entire production staff move to China. Pratt & Whitney has over 70% of the Commercial Engine industry done in China and Poland, and I just found out, that last year, Pratt moved their F100 operations to China, over 60% of that engine is made overseas.
Anyone remember last year when ALL F-15's and F-16's got grounded after two crashes? GROUNDED for a few weeks?
Overseas vendor issues, baby!
< inset Sam Kineson voice here > OH! OHHHH! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
And you say her 30K salary and homekeeping is something to make us humble up here!!
Hrumpf!!!
LOL!!!! Yes but thank goodness for home equity loans. She would like to move but I don't think so. I don't know how she does it on a daily basis but that's how she is, a very hard working woman. And she doesn't complain except when the tax bill comes around.
I'm just glad to have a job myself. I keep telling myself the economy is great the economy is great. I hope I'm not deluding myself.
Good advice, as tough as it may be at times.
I've come to expect that HR folks seem to only consider the "cookie cutter" resumes, which leaves out a jack-of-all-trades CPA like me (no Big 4 or large company experience).
However, I was energized by a recent temp job. I spent 3 weeks bringing a company back into compliance with their sales tax and annual reporting requirements (20 states). The best part was a referral to another company that needed help in cleaning up their books. Although it's not "etched in stone", this contract should take me through July, and maybe into August.
Based on what I've seen the past few weeks, things are looking much better. I've received more calls in the last two weeks than I had received from Nov-May.
I guess the moral to my story is don't turn down a temp job, even if the pay isn't exactly what you want. You never know what contacts you may make. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't draw unemployment for the time that you're working. Or, it turns out to be a lousy place to work, whereupon you know not to apply at that company!
They also loose people through attrition. But if there are no jobs in that area, if at all possible it might be time to move somewhere else. If moving is impossible, then it might be time for a new career, or time to start a small business. New careers require education, which for a single person is easy but not for a primary breadwinner. I suppose a spouse could work to support the family, and you could work part time while getting new training. It is hard though. For us, we got really aggressive in starting a new business and did a few other things, but honestly there was a lot of divine intervention, I believe, that helped us after we started having faith that our efforts would pan out.
$30k is not usually enough to live on if you've got a family plus mortgage and all that.
Well she doesn't have a mortgage but the property taxes are getting ridiculous, not to mention the utilities like electricity. I know that a family can't really be supported on $30K and she knows it too which is why she never whines. I'm grown and help her out with money. Myself I have two jobs and am going back to school soon (hopefully). I will take just about any job that pays reasonable.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1161130/posts?page=1,50
Another pleasant story.
In reply to your post to me, it is a good thing you don't have small children. Your paycheck would get eaten up with daycare fees. Once you have kids, you're "owned". I also took vitamin supplements and herbal compounds until I had to go to county health clinic. It's all just sitting there in my kitchen. I'm afraid to take Excedrin these days. Things will get better. I have some support from my friends and some family members.
I'm starting to wonder just what you have to do to access Social Services.
You hit on a very good point. Temp / contract jobs are a great way to get a foot in the door of a company. EVEN if it's not exactly your line of work. If you go to a company that does employ people like you - and for whatever reason that company has overlooked you - go to work there as a floor scrubber if you have to. Opportunities will open once you are there, or someone in that company will get to see your hard work and somehow in conversation you will be pointed in a good direction. Temp jobs are a great way to network.
I should add that a main reason companies don't respond when you apply for work there online, is that they are inundated with unqualified people applying for specific positions. They cannot find your resume through the stack of people who are not qualified. That is why I suggest 1) having a cover letter that speaks, loudly, "I am a NEAR PERFECT match for this _____ position, because, you ask for ____, I have ____." Also, 2) find the hiring managers whom you would typically report to and apply to them directly, because they are the ones who have the need, they are directing the recruiters to find qualified talent, and if qualified talent lands in their lap, those hiring managers will get you plugged into the hiring loop.
And the pipe designer could get a job in five minutes flat - In VA....
I knock on wood that I don't have little ones. Well I'm not married to begin with, but I really really don't know how single moms do it all alone. Now I tell my mom in jest that she is my major creditor for all the money she and my father spent on me throughout life, but sometimes it's not so funny. She gave up a career to stay at home.
Now it's true I take all that stuff to keep out of the hospital. So far it has worked. I work in a health food store and have access to herbs and vitamins. I had a mini stroke because unlike Cheney I didn't tell someone to eff off *LOL* and if DSS didn't pick up for some of the bill I'm afraid to know how much one night in the hole-I mean hospital! cost me. Knowing what some families are going through keeps my whining to a minimum (most of the time).
Some people need to learn to move for jobs. That's easy to say when you have no kids though I guess.
Mobile, cheap, atomized labor force would be perfect for free market! People without roots, connections, community will be docile and obedient. They would not be able to meddle in politics or organize.
One difficulty is that they will not be able to raise many children but it can be remedied by the import of new labor from the Third World.
Moving can be fun --- but I think it can be emotionally very hard on some people --- there are people who keep close family ties, traditional type people who like to live near their relatives who would be very lonesome far away from their roots. Not me --- I can pick up roots and put them down anywhere but I've seen people try to move and not do so well. I think only some people should move --- moving to find a Walmart type job might not make the most sense -- it depends.
What you might want to do is get any job in a hospital that you can and see if they have tuition reimbursement which could pay your way through a nursing education. If you're considering that field --- some hospital jobs pay pretty well and there are shortages. At least try to benefit before national health care comes about which will destroy those opportunities.
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