Competition fierce in stagnant E.V. job market

In early November, Pawnee Carter lost her government agency job with no prior notice or severance, and two months later she’s still looking for work. She’s a single mom who lives in east Mesa with her teenage daughter, Leila.

“Here I was sitting there with nothing, absolutely nothing,” she said. “I did qualify for food stamps, but no cash. So I was borrowing money from my family ... like $10 for gas. My parents were not opposed to giving me the $10 because they knew I needed to go job looking and things like that.”

Carter applied for unemployment insurance with the Arizona Department of Economic Security, and panic began to set in when there was a delay in processing her claim. Six weeks later, she received a call from the agency informing her that the first checks were in the mail.

“I literally cried on the phone,” she said. “I was able to pay my phone bill and I was able to put a tank of gas in my car, and pay my water bill. It took a lot of weight off.”

Carter is part of a growing segment of the East Valley’s population, people who have lost jobs and been unemployed for months as prospects are few and far between. Competition is fierce for every opening out there.

“I haven’t had any responses at all,” Carter said. “There’s companies that are hiring ... but I think it’s just the sheer numbers of applicants that prevents them from making timely contact. You’ve got 400 people applying for this position instead of 200. At a local gas station near my house, there was a part-time position open there ... and they had somewhere around 50 people apply for that job where normally they would have five.”

The national unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent in December as businesses slashed 524,000 jobs. For all of 2008, the economy lost 2.6 million jobs, the worst showing since 1945.

Arizona and the Valley’s unemployment rates for December have not been released, but the state rate was 6.3 percent in November compared to 4.1 percent for the same month in 2007, while the Valley’s rate was 5.7 percent compared to 3.6 percent.

Job-seekers are going to have a tough time finding work for at least the next several months as employers continue shedding workers, said Dennis Doby, senior director at the Arizona Department of Commerce’s Research Administration.

“For at least the first half of 2009, yeah, it looks pretty weak,” he said. “The only area that’s showing some strength has been educational and health services, and that’s in the health services portion. The rest of the major industries are weak or showing over-the-year losses. So it’s going to be a bit of an extended downturn.”

SWAMPED WITH CLAIMS

The state Department of Economic Security has been receiving about 9,200 new unemployment insurance applications each week, and some weeks it has surpassed 11,000, said spokeswoman Vicki Gaubeca.

“Last year around this time we were averaging about 4,000 a week, so we’re talking double and sometimes triple the clients,” she said. “We are hiring people to handle claims. Since May, we’ve added about 78 new staff and we’re also in the process of hiring another 45. That will alleviate some of the issues that are happening just because our workload has doubled.”

Originally, applicants could get up to 26 weeks of unemployment insurance, but the length was extended to allow up to 46 weeks, Gaubeca said. This month, the length was further extended to 59 weeks because so many people are remaining out of work for so long, she said.

Hordes of unemployed residents have descended on the Maricopa Workforce Connections career center in Gilbert, desperate for help with finding new employment.

“Between this facility and our west Valley facility, we’ve probably seen more than 3,000 more people a month than we did a year ago for the last five to six months,” said Terry Farrell, Gilbert center coordinator. “In the eight years that I have been fortunate to work for Maricopa County, this is the hugest increase in services. The frustration is there’s not a lot out there in a time when they’re being downsized, their occupations are dwindling, and so some really tough decisions are being made.”

The Gilbert center offers skills assessment, career development and retraining, and placement services. A lot of people need retraining because they are forced to change careers, Farrell said.

And every employer who recruits at the center is flooded with applicants, he said.

“We had an incident where we had a new store retail opportunity ... hiring for about 30 jobs, and we had about 420 applicants by 2 p.m.,” he said. “We had to actually shut the doors because the volume was too big.”

'SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE’

Jeff DeWitt retired after 26 years in the Air Force and moved to the East Valley in May. He’s been looking for work ever since and is becoming increasingly frustrated with the dwindling number of job prospects, and no real interest from employers.

“I feel I have some great skills to offer, a lot of leadership and management skills that I learned in the military,” he said. “I’m an information technology person by trade. However, it’s been about 10 years since I’ve done any hands-on work so my skills aren’t fresh right now.”

DeWitt has been focusing on federal jobs, and has communicated with all of the big defense contractors with a major local presence.

“Part of my problem is I’m in my mid-40s and a lot of the jobs, they’re looking for entry level or executive level people, and I’m neither of those,” he said. “I’m somewhere in the middle.”

It’s frustrating knowing you’re not a candidate for a lot of the jobs out there, DeWitt said.

“I can see where the hot industries are, and health care is definitely one of those,” he said. “However, an IT guy who knows how to lead and manage people in a military environment isn’t necessarily suited for a job in health care.”

DeWitt does receive a small pension from the military, but being out of work has strained his finances.

“Thank God gas is only $1.50 a gallon,” he said. “I have a certain amount of frustration with the fact that a veteran with as much experience as I have leading and managing people would have such a hard time finding work here. I just feel that my résumé ... really speaks to some really great skills that an employer could use right now, and it just hasn’t happened.”

DeWitt is now focused on obtaining a project manager certification, which he believes will make him qualified for more jobs.

“What I see out there is people are looking for project managers, but one of the prerequisites for the job is certification and I don’t have that,” he said.

REASONS TO BE OPTIMISTIC

There will be an economic recovery and the job market eventually will improve, Doby said.

“For now, it just means your job search may be longer and you may need to look in more areas,” he said. “Even with industries that are actually showing losses, there is some turnover ... and there still may be some opportunities to pick up a position. It doesn’t mean that people should stop looking in their area of interest.”

After a dismal first half, the second half of 2009 should show some signs of improvement as the rate of job loss slows and returns to zero, Doby said.

Trade jobs will be among the first to return as consumers start feeling more secure, Doby said. Jobs in professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality also will start to resurface, he said.

“Because of the housing woes, construction could take even longer for a recovery period to come and to see substantial growth again,” he said. “It’s the same with some of the manufacturing jobs.”

In the meantime, Carter is still looking for work and holding things together financially.

“I’d like to be called by the state to be one of those people the Department of Economic Security is hiring (to process unemployment insurance applications),” she said. “Starting pay over there is $26,000 to $27,000 a year, which isn’t bad.”

Unexpected donations have helped Carter keep her family intact.

“I have a dog who lives in our house and then a couple of stray cats who sort of adopted my front porch, and I had no money to buy dog food or cat food,” she said. “A neighbor works for a local pet store and she told some co-workers about it, and they brought me 50 pounds of dog food and 30 pounds of cat food. I was very, very grateful.”