Heather Draper
Jobless on Labor Day
Sun Aug 31 10:15:59 2003
67.1.154.249

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2221738,00.html
Rocky Mountain News

Jobless on Labor Day
Frustrated seekers hope their luck will turn around

By Heather Draper, Rocky Mountain News
August 30, 2003

This Labor Day weekend celebrates the sweat on the brows of American workers, but it also highlights a big divide between the haves and the have nots.

Jobs, that is.

Although the Colorado unemployment rate has remained relatively steady at around 5.7 percent in recent months — below the national rate of 6.2 percent in July — the numbers don't always paint an accurate picture of the labor market.

Since the local dot-com and telecommunications sectors began to unravel in 2001, in unison with a national recession, some Coloradans have found themselves stuck in the economy's margins. They've been out of work so long they've stopped looking and no longer show up in the state's unemployment figures.

Or they've moved out of state.

Others have lost jobs and been rehired by another company, only to get laid off again. Still others are working at temporary or part-time jobs. The lucky ones have full-time jobs. The really lucky ones have full-time jobs they enjoy.

"There's just no end in sight right now," said Jocelyn Robinson, operations section manager for the Denver Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. "We've seen the number of visitors to our offices continue to bloom, and we're having a hard time keeping up."

More than 83,000 people seeking help to find work visited the six Denver-area Workforce centers from January through the end of July, Robinson said. At that rate, the number could hit 143,000 by the end of the year — up 22 percent from the 116,960 visitors in 2002.

The number of unemployed Coloradans hit 141,700 in July, up from 139,600 a year ago, according to the state labor department's latest unemployment report.

"We've seen some very, very highly skilled individuals coming into our centers," Robinson said. "There have also been a lot of people working two or three jobs trying to make ends meet."

For those living in fear of losing their jobs, more bad news: You are 25 percent more likely to lose a job after Labor Day than in the preceding eight months.

According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., the monthly job-cut average during the last four months of the year was 80,858 between 1995 and 2002. That is 25 percent higher than the 64,914 job cuts averaged in each of the preceding eight months, during the same period.

Challenger says employers tend to make more cuts at the end of the year because they are finalizing budgets and business plans for the next year, and payroll levels are heavily affected by both.

Job center blues

The Mayor's Office of Workforce Development at 1391 Speer Blvd. is a popular place these days. So is the office at 1200 Federal Blvd., as are the other metro locations.

On a recent afternoon, the Speer office's 15 computer stations were all in use, and four people were waiting for one to open up.

Donald Toatley, of Aurora, was busy on one of the computers, writing a grant proposal to start his own business. Toatley, who says he is in his mid-40s, was laid off in May after working for 12 years at a major telecommunications company.

The nattily dressed communications professional said he has found the job market in Denver "extremely competitive" since he lost his job.

Part of his frustration, he says, is with the telecom industry's trend to outsource work to cheaper labor markets overseas.

"Information is one of our most important commodities," Toatley said. "You can get quantity, or you can get quality."

But he isn't worried.

"I'm going to get this grant — I'm very confident about that."

On a computer on the other side of the room, a former computer technician was working on his résumé.

He wouldn't give his name. He is bitter.

"I'm doing whatever it takes to survive," said the young techie. "It's brutal — people are being treated like meat out there."

He talks about his last employer, who he says outsourced his job after he had met 90 percent of his annual goals by the third quarter. Companies are getting "more and more unethical," he said, because they think workers are easily replaced.

His personal forecast for the local economy: "Outsourcing is going to kill Denver."

The underemployed

Catherine Davis Hosking sometimes questions her decisions since 2001.

The 33-year-old attorney left her job in the policy/law department at Qwest Communications in March 2001, a few months after the company absorbed US West in a merger.

"I was at US West and loved it," Hosking said. "Qwest came in, and everything changed. So I took a severance package and left."

She had no idea how difficult it would be to find a job after that.

At first, she was turning down positions in which she would have made more money than she did at Qwest, because she wanted to land the perfect job.

One job she's thankful she turned down was a position at now-bankrupt Enron Corp. in Houston.

But she began to worry after the terrorist attacks in September 2001.

"After Sept. 11, companies were calling me to cancel interviews," Hosking said. "I thought, ‘Oh, this isn't good.'"
She started working for free for friends or taking part-time work to stay busy.

"Here I am with a law degree, working for $10 an hour," she said.

A year-and-a-half after she left Qwest, she finally got a job with a local company writing business proposals. She earns about $16,000 a year less than she did at Qwest.

She is thankful to have a job — she says it's a good company that is growing — but she hopes she gets the chance to make better use of her professional skills there.

Hosking likes Denver, but says she feels the opportunities aren't here that once were.

"This is a great place to live, but after a few years, I might say, this is enough," she said. "My husband and I might consider moving someplace where we can be more prosperous."

Turning the corner?

It's not all gloom and doom in the local job market, says at least one job placement specialist, who sees light at the end of the bleak economic tunnel.

"I feel very optimistic that the economy will turn around," said Ledy Garcia-Eckstein, acting director of the Mayor's Office of Workforce Development. "Some jobs are coming back, just not as fast as we'd like them to."

She said some companies are starting to hire again, even though many are hiring only temporary employees.

"I think some companies are afraid to hire full-time permanent workers," Garcia-Eckstein said.

But, she has found that "people with a high degree of skills eventually get jobs."

Mike Picchetti, 27, of Denver, recently landed a job as a video editor at Starz Encore Group in Douglas County after a long, sometimes frustrating search.

He was laid off from the Hallmark Channel when it dissolved its Denver operations early this year.

"There was a time right before the Starz job when I was thinking about switching careers and doing a lot of soul-searching," Picchetti said. "I didn't come up with much, so I figured I'd have to leave Denver."

That would have been tough for him because his fiancée, Leigh McGouth, has a job she likes at Qwest.

"I feel lucky to have a job in my field," he said. "I enjoy going to work every day. It's a great place to work — I love the vibe there."

Former Xcel Energy executive Skip Arnold, 49, also says he considers himself one of the fortunate ones.

He had been working for Public Service Company of Colorado for "25 years, three months and 10 days" when his job was eliminated in July 2001. The company reorganized after the merger between its new identity — New Century Energies — and Northern States Power that formed Xcel Energy in 2000.

"They gave me a generous severance package, which gave me time to relax a little bit," Arnold said. "I didn't start looking for work for 10 months."

That is when the reality of how tight the metro job market is really hit him. Hard.

He applied for more than 30 jobs — he says he was qualified for every one of them — and he didn't even hear back from most places.

"It became very discouraging, and my unemployment was lasting too long," Arnold said.

His luck turned around in March when he applied for and was hired as the executive director of the Colorado Energy Assistance Foundation in Denver.

"I was looking for a job and got a career," Arnold said. "Many people are getting jobs that are just that — jobs. I was one of the very lucky ones who found a position that I just love."

draperh@RockyMountainNews.com  or 303-892-5456

Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.