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  1. #1
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    Job hunt grows harder as recession deepens

    updated 2:57 p.m. MT, Thurs., Jan. 8, 2009

    WASHINGTON - The number of laid-off workers who are continuing to draw unemployment checks has jumped to the highest in more than a quarter-century and is likely to keep climbing this year — fresh evidence that people are finding it increasingly difficult to get a new job amid a deepening recession.

    The Labor Department's report Thursday also said first-time applications for jobless benefits dropped to 467,000 last week. But economists largely described that decline as a distortion, reflecting the government's difficulty in making seasonal adjustments over the holiday period. Even with the dip, the figure still signaled trouble in the labor market. A year ago, initial claims stood at 330,000.

    Persistent economic woes — housing, credit and financial crises — along with a flurry of layoffs announcements in the opening days of 2009 all point to another terrible year for jobseekers, economists said.


    Job hunter Barbara Slavin of Los Angeles knows that frustration.

    "Many of the jobs I applied for I was qualified for and didn't get them," laments Slavin, 67, who was laid off last month as an executive assistant for a local Girl Scouts chapter. "I got a lot of energy. I like to work, and I don't know anybody who can live on Social Security alone."

    She has worked a variety of places over the years, including a catering kitchen, a corporate newsletter and a software company.

    The government's report showed that the number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits rose by a sharp 101,000 to 4.6 million for the week ending Dec. 27, the most recent period for which that information is available. It was worse than the 4.5 million level of claims that economists had expected.

    That increase left continued claims at the highest since November 1982, when the country was emerging from a deep recession, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. A year ago, this figure stood at nearly 2.7 million. The increase underscored the painful deterioration that has occurred in the jobs market.

    "Workers getting laid off are not going to get hired any time soon," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia.

    Some economists believe the number of people drawing unemployment benefits could rise as high as 5.5 million this year — even if a new government stimulus package is enacted.

    President-elect Barack Obama called for a bold approach to revive the economy.

    "I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," he said Thursday, the fourth straight day he talked about the economy, the No. 1 concern of most Americans.

    "If nothing is done, this recession could linger," Obama warned. "The unemployment rate could reach double digits."

    With employers throttling back hiring, the unemployment rate is expected to jump from 6.7 percent in November to 7 percent in December, which would be the highest in 15 1/2 years. The government releases that report Friday.


    Obama, who takes over Jan. 20, is championing a massive package of tax cuts and government spending that could total $775 billion over two years. With add-ons by lawmakers, the package could swell to $850 billion, his advisers say.

    With jobs disappearing, shoppers held tight to their wallets and pocketbooks at the end of 2008. The Federal Reserve said Thursday that consumers cut back on their borrowing on credit cards, and for such things as auto loans, at an annual rate of $7.94 billion in November, the biggest decline in 65 years of record keeping.

    And retailers on Thursday reported dismal sales figures for December. Even Wal-Mart Stores Inc. finally buckled under the pressure of the sinking economy, with its sales rising less than analysts had expected. Among the many retailers that reported steep sales declines were Sears Holdings Corp., which operates Kmart and Sears stores, luxury retailer Saks Inc. and Gap Inc.

    The job losses are hitting workers across the board. Drugstore operator Walgreen Co. said Thursday it will cut 1,000 jobs by mid-year, or about 9 percent of corporate management, through a combination of voluntary buyouts and layoffs.


    Consumers and companies are folding under the forces of the collapsed housing market, a global credit crunch and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The recession, which started in December 2007, already is the longest in a quarter-century.

    "Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy — where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs, which leads to even less spending," Obama said.

    This week alone, managed care provider Cigna Corp., aluminum producer Alcoa Inc., data-storage company EMC Corp. and computer products maker Logitech International all announced major layoffs to cope with a recession that has just entered its second year.



    Pink slips are piling higher as companies scramble to cut costs even deeper. Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days due to the crush of Americans seeking jobless benefits.


    For all of 2008, employers likely slashed payrolls by at least 2.4 million. That's based on economists' forecasts for a net loss of 500,000 additional jobs in December, as well as the job losses already reported every month last year by the government. Some, however, think the number of jobs cut last month will be higher — around 600,000 or 700,000. That information also will be out Friday.

    If the conservative 2.4 million estimate of payroll reductions for 2008 proves correct, it would mark the first annual job loss since the previous recession in 2001. It also would be the worst year of job losses since 1945, when employers slashed nearly 2.8 million jobs, though the number of jobs in the U.S. has more than tripled since then.

    On a more upbeat note Thursday, rates on 30-year mortgages this week fell to a new record low of 5.01 percent, a dose of good news for prospective home buyers — if they can manage to get a home loan.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28557005/page/2/

  2. #2
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    I have been rejected applying for many part-time jobs (where employers don't have to provide health insurance or a pension) as I am bordering on "elderly" and for years AARP has been drooling over me as a new member. In my mid-fifties, I believe I have been rejected because I speak no Spanish, although I speak Finnish and German. No one will hire me when there is some kid or illegal alien willing to work for less and be a bit more malleable than me, with my experience in business, with fear that I might point out a problem and upset the status quo.
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  3. #3
    April
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    Quote Originally Posted by vortex
    I have been rejected applying for many part-time jobs (where employers don't have to provide health insurance or a pension) as I am bordering on "elderly" and for years AARP has been drooling over me as a new member. In my mid-fifties, I believe I have been rejected because I speak no Spanish, although I speak Finnish and German. No one will hire me when there is some kid or illegal alien willing to work for less and be a bit more malleable than me, with my experience in business, with fear that I might point out a problem and upset the status quo.
    I am sorry to hear that vortex, I know there are many others in the same boat. It is sad that so many Americans are in such a bad situation.

  4. #4
    DJ
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    Vortex is one of millions of Americans who need any job provided by Obama. I wrote a note to Lou Dobbs today imploring him to keep up the pressure to force them to use eVerify so only Americans get those jobs. I pretty much said that if American citizens are passed over! Lou is doing a good job mentioning all this, but I want to see it HAMMERED!!!

    Vortex, I feel so frustrated for you! Hang in there.

  5. #5
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    vortex, you are not alone. Have a relative in his 50's who has been out of work for sometime and I truly worry what may happen to him. And in Mexifornia Spanish has been required for many jobs here for years. Impressive how you know three languages. Seems that skill could be of use somewhere somehow. Sincere good luck!
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  6. #6
    April
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    Americans need the jobs and will do the jobs, time for our government to care about AMERICANS!

  7. #7
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    States with worst jobless rates share root causes
    Friday January 9, 4:24 pm ET

    By Christopher S. Rugaber and Ray Henry, Associated Press Writers

    Unemployment hot spots all over the map, but worst states share housing, manufacturing pain

    Unlike the last recession, today's unemployment hot spots are all over the map.
    The five states with the highest unemployment rates -- Michigan, Rhode Island, South Carolina, California and Oregon -- all have something in common, though: a heightened exposure to the root causes of this downward spiral.

    The collapse of housing. The implosion of the auto industry. The meltdown of financial services. The exodus of manufacturing.

    All states are feeling the pain, but the worst are getting hammered on multiple fronts:

    -- The rotten housing market has punished California lenders and builders, taken an ax to Oregon's timber industry and soured the prospects for construction workers in Rhode Island, where buyers from neighboring states helped drive up home prices.

    -- The steady decline of the manufacturing sector has punished Rhode Island and South Carolina, where laid-off factory workers lack the training and job opportunities in an increasingly high-tech economy.

    -- The auto industry's pain is Michigan's above all. But it is also being felt in states like South Carolina, where German automaker BMW has cut 500 temporary workers, and in California, where many of dealerships have shut down.

    "What makes this a different recession," said Rebecca Blank, an economist at the Brookings Institution, "is that it is so widespread."

    During the 2001 recession, which was largely tied to the dot-com collapse, the West had a disproportionate amount of the jobless burden: Oregon, Washington, Alaska and California had the highest unemployment rates. (Mississippi and Washington, D.C. were tied with California.)

    There is one region of the country that has largely avoided the country's real estate and manufacturing woes, and as a result has been spared the worst of the recession's pain.

    A contiguous cluster of rural states -- Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Utah -- had the lowest unemployment rates in November, ranging from 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent. The Labor Department on Friday said the national jobless rate in December was 7.2 percent.

    Historically high prices for energy and grains have been a boon to their economies, although recent declines in commodity prices are beginning to bite, economists said.

    For the majority of the country, the air has come out of a decade-long housing bubble, with home prices falling an average of 20 percent in the past year and almost one in ten mortgages either overdue or in foreclosure. A wide swath of industries is feeling the pain, including real estate agents, bankers, builders, lumber companies and furniture makers.

    The real estate bust is at the heart of mounting job losses in California, which has seen its unemployment rate reach 8.4 percent, the third-highest in the nation. In the year ending in November, 71 percent of the nonfarm jobs lost in California were housing-related.

    Many of the nation's leading mortgage lenders -- Countrywide Financial, New Century Financial, IndyMac Bancorp, and Fremont General Corp. -- were based in California and have since been bought by larger banks or gone bankrupt.

    The recently unemployed in California include Filemon Galvan, 41, of Buena Park, Calif., who was laid off from his job as a carpenter for a housing subcontractor in August.

    "It's been a long time since we had a nice family outing," Galvan said in Spanish.

    As the country's leading lumber producer, Oregon has also taken a direct hit from housing, with sawmills producing sharply less than a year ago. The slump has cost Oregon about 1,000 logging jobs in the past two years and more than 7,000 jobs in wood manufacturing, which includes plywood mills and the production of door and window frames, said David Cooke, an economist in Oregon's employment department.

    Not even tiny Rhode Island, which has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate at 9.3 percent, has been exempt from the housing bust.

    The slide has cost Rhode Island more than 3,000 construction jobs in the past year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

    Due to a combination of high energy prices, a strong dollar and competition from overseas, manufacturers have been manhandled for most of this decade -- and ground zero for the loss of factory jobs is Michigan. Its crumbling auto industry explains a large part of the state's nation-leading unemployment rate of 9.6 percent. Around the state, and across the country, the state's automakers have had to close plants and showrooms, cut back workers' hours and reduce wages as consumers' appetite for new cars dwindles along with their job security.

    But the manufacturing slowdown has gone far beyond the industrial Midwest. South Carolina's jobless rate has reached 8.4 percent, the third-highest, as it struggles to replace lost textile and apparel manufacturing jobs with the type of high-tech industries that North Carolina has been able to attract.

    And Rhode Island, not generally known as a manufacturing hub, has suffered. The industrial conglomerate Textron Inc., which is based in Providence and makes Cessna jets and Bell helicopters, laid off 2,200 of its 43,000 workers last year.

    Most of the state's manufacturers are small, however, and have had a tough time weathering the credit crunch.

    Lincoln, R.I. resident Larry Miller believed he would retire from the auto parts manufacturer where he first got a job as a newly married 26-year-old. That was two factory closings ago, the most recent being a plant owned by KIK Custom Products, which also had employed his wife.

    "The word loyalty is gone," said Miller, shaking his head while sitting at his kitchen table. He found a new job in Massachusetts, but his wife is still looking.

    Like South Carolina, the state hasn't yet made a successful transformation from manufacturing to newer-economy industries such as biotech or computing.

    "I would summarize Rhode Island's economy as information age, hold the information," said Leonard Lardaro, an economist at the University of Rhode Island.

    Rugaber reported from Washington, D.C., and Henry from Lincoln, R.I. Associated Press Writers Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles, Meg Kinnard in Charleston, S.C., Janna Elphinstone in New York, and Mary Hudetz in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.

    http://biz.yahoo.com
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  8. #8
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    Published: 01.10.2009

    US suffers its worst job losses since WWII
    More jobs are expected to vanish in '09; 'This is the moment to act,' Obama says
    By Jeannine Aversa
    THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
    By the numbers

    WASHINGTON — By the hundreds of thousands now, Americans are getting the dreaded news: You've lost your job. And there's almost no place to land.
    A staggering 2.6 million jobs disappeared in 2008, the most since World War II, and the pain is only getting worse with 11 million people out of work and searching. A half-million jobs evaporated in December alone, while unemployment hit a 16-year high of 7.2 percent and seemed to be headed for 10 percent or even higher by year's end.
    Friday's government figures were "a stark reminder," said President-elect Barack Obama, that bold and immediate government action is needed to revive a national economy that's deep in recession and still sinking.
    The government estimated that 524,000 jobs melted away as winter took hold in December, and the true carnage will almost certainly turn out to be even worse when the figures are nailed down more clearly a month from now.
    "Behind the statistics that we see flashing on the screens are real lives, real suffering, real fears," said Obama, already moving full speed with Congress to put together an emergency revival plan a week and a half before taking office.
    It's real, indeed, for 38-year-old Rachel Davis of St. Louis.
    "If you get laid off right now, God help your soul," she said. "You better hope you've got savings or someone backing you." In fact, she was laid off three months ago after working as a dental technician for 20 years. While Congress and the new president struggle to find answers, she says, "I have no faith in this system" and plans to move out of the country in hopes of finding better luck.
    The severe recession, which just entered its second year, is already the longest in a quarter-century and is likely to stretch well into this year. The fact that the country is battling a housing collapse, a lockup in lending and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s makes the downturn especially dangerous.
    All the problems have forced consumers and companies alike to retrench, feeding into a vicious cycle that Washington policymakers are finding difficult to break.
    Investors, too. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 143 points Friday to end the week down nearly 5 percent, the worst week since November.
    The Labor Department's unemployment report showed widespread damage across U.S. industries and workers — hitting blue-collar and white-collar workers, people without high school diplomas and those with college degrees.
    "One word comes to mind — dreadful," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.
    And, there's no relief in sight. The new year got off to a rough start with a flurry of big corporate layoffs, and there were more on Friday. Airplane maker Boeing Co. said it plans to cut about 4,500 jobs this year, and uniform maker G&K Services Inc. is eliminating 460 jobs.
    Employers also are cutting workers' hours and forcing some to go part time. The average workweek in December fell to 33.3 hours, the lowest in records dating to 1964 — and a sign of more job reductions in the months ahead since businesses tend to cut hours before eliminating positions entirely.
    "There is no indication that the job situation would stabilize anytime soon," said Sung Won Sohn, economist at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University. "This could turn out to be one of the worst economic setbacks since the Great Depression."
    Economists predict a net total of 1.5 million to 2 million or more jobs will vanish in 2009, and the unemployment rate could hit 9 percent or 10 percent, underscoring the challenges Obama will face and the tough road ahead for job seekers.
    All told, 11.1 million people were unemployed in December. An additional 8 million people were working part time — a category that includes those who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or those who were unable to find full-time work. That was up sharply from 7.3 million in November.
    If those part-time employees, discouraged workers and others are factored in, the unemployment rate would have been much higher — 13.5 percent in December. That was the highest for that broader category in records going back to 1994.
    Worried about the sinking economy and their own financial fortunes, companies are trimming payrolls as a way to cut costs. Government revisions showed losses in both October and November to be much deeper than previously reported.
    "Clearly, the situation is dire, it is deteriorating, and it demands urgent action," Obama said Friday. "For the sake of our economy and our people, this is the moment to act, and to act without delay."
    IN THE RED
    The U.S. lost more jobs in 2008 than in any year since 1945. Employers let 524,000 people go in December as the unemployment rate climbed to 7.2 percent, the highest since early 1993.
    By the numbers
    524,000
    number of jobs cut in December 2008
    2.6 million
    number of jobs cut in 2008
    11.1 million
    number of people now unemployed in the United States

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