Thread: High-tech collapse still hurts as many unemployed or underem

High-tech collapse still hurts as many unemployed or underemployed

written by: Pat Ferrier, Fort Collins Coloradoan, posted by: Dan Boniface , Web Producer created: 9/2/2007 7:33:25 AM
Last updated: 9/2/2007 8:03:24 AM

LARIMER COUNTY - Sue Rua blows up her inflatable bed every night and tosses it on the living room floor of a one-bedroom home she shares with a friend.


Rua, 46, lost her job as software tester for a Hewlett-Packard subcontractor in 2001; she lost her home two years later. Her friend took her in to keep her off the streets.

Like thousands of others in Larimer County, Rua is a casualty of the high-tech collapse that saw more than 5,000 high-paying jobs downsized, outsourced, offshored or consolidated, taking with them some of the highest paychecks in the region.

Lost high-tech jobs, many in electronic manufacturing, were replaced with lower-paying jobs that left workers unemployed or underemployed.

"We lost the manufacturing sector," Colorado State University regional economist Martin Shields said. "As technology becomes more routinized, those jobs can go overseas where companies can get people to do them for a lot less money. It happened to be high-tech's turn."

A report from the Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey shows that more than 25,000 people in Fort Collins live in homes with family incomes less than the federal poverty level, about $9,000 for a single woman such as Rua, or $20,000 for a couple with two children.

Fort Collins' poverty population grew by about 9,800 people between 2000 and 2006, a period that coincided with the collapse of the high-tech industry.

As laid-off workers struggled to make ends meet living on severance packages, savings, temp jobs and retirement funds, a new class of residents emerged: people for the first time living in or near poverty or seeking help from such agencies as the food bank, Neighbor to Neighbor and the Larimer County Workforce Center.

"These numbers aren't surprising to us at all," said Amy Pezzani, executive director of the Food Bank for Larimer County. She sees the increase every day.

The number of individuals served by the food bank more than doubled since 2001, when layoffs started to occur, to more than 19,000 last year.

The economic change has taken a toll on workers and their families as the region struggles to redefine itself economically.

"It just seems weird going from being specialized in IT to doing nothing," Rua said. "It seems like nothing counts for anything. I feel like I don't count for anything.

"It's a hard place to live like that," said Rua, who volunteers two days a week at the Salvation Army to stay busy and productive.

The emotional toll is tough, Rua said. "I have to find a way to keep going, but it's taken a tremendous amount of soul searching. I have to find (the strength) somewhere or I would go bonkers."

While Larimer County's unemployment remains low at about 3.3 percent, the recovery from job losses has been tepid, regional economist Shields said.

"We have low unemployment but no real wage growth," he said.

In the past five years wages have stagnated and dropped when adjusted for inflation, Shields said.

People are earning less even it they're working more.

Currently, the Larimer County Workforce Center has 505 jobs posted – everything from housekeepers to bank branch managers and engineers.

However, the center also has more than 13,000 jobseekers looking for entry level to professional work, creating fierce competition for jobs – even low-wage, low-skilled jobs, said Melissa English, a technical consultant with the Larimer County Workforce Center.

Unemployment numbers, however, don't tell the real story of how many workers are underemployed in jobs for which they are overqualified.

According to some estimates, 20,000 underemployed workers leave Larimer County every day to work elsewhere.

"Underemployment is a tough one to figure," said Lew Wymisner, assistant director of the Larimer County Workforce Center. "We've been talking about it for years, because how much of the underemployment is voluntary? A second income? Part-time job? Do they consider themselves underemployed? There are all sorts of contingencies" when considering underemployment.

It will take real wage growth to improve opportunities for the underemployed and unemployed, Shields said.

"As we have pressure in the labor market, employers have to look a little harder for workers," he said.

And once employers are looking harder for workers, more people will have increased opportunities. Businesses become more willing to train or look to people who may not have the exact desired skills, Shields said. "They understand they can't get workers with experience."

Workers, especially those in high-tech and manufacturing, have to understand their high-paying jobs are gone and aren't coming back, Wymisner said.

"It's an eye opener for someone who has to change jobs and change industries," he said.

Mark Johnston of the Workforce Center helps retrain workers for new jobs. He said he's seeing customers with no high school diploma who have been making good money and are now trying to find jobs that pay comparable salaries.

In some cases they need remedial reading and writing help to be successful.

But jobs, even high-paying ones, can't grow the region out of poverty, Shields said. Even when job growth has been strong, at the end of the 1990s, for example, national poverty rates were still at about 10 percent, he said

One strength for Northern Colorado in its effort at economic rebuilding is CSU.

CSU is the region's largest employer and economic engine. It continues to develop new sectors such as clean energy and biosciences clusters to fuel the new economy.

New research is coming to market more quickly than ever, resulting in increased research grants that help fuel jobs in the region.

"The university provides a lot of leadership in research and I'm sure spinoffs will come from that," Shields said.

Yet, the losses from high-tech are deep and personal for many such as Rua, who have lost everything except their will.

Her $35,000 salary is down to nearly nothing, putting her well below the poverty level and making her reliant on the generosity of friends. Temp jobs came with the promise of permanency and went just as quickly – four layoffs in four years – enough to weaken the strongest of resolves.

It feels as a violation of sorts for many workers – severing that unofficial social contract that assumes a job is the reward for hard work and strong skills.

"I have not even had one temp job this year," Rua said. "Everything is so bone dry."
However, high-tech can't take the total rap for increasing poverty rates.

Part of the responsibility lies with a region that failed to recognize and react quickly enough to the changing tech market, Shields said.

"Everyone thinks about high tech as being research and development and you forget about the manufacturing part," he said.

"There was a little bit of over-exuberance, even from the R&D side, that this would be our new economy. But at the same time, they're manufacturing jobs and as susceptible to outsourcing as anything else," he said. "If you just think of it as a manufacturing business then maybe the writing was on the wall."

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=76552

Somebody should egg Bill Gates the next time he gets up and bemoans the fact he can't find high-tech workers in the US and needs to import them.I have also read reports US college kids are not choosing Science and Hi-Tech careers as they once did. DUH

They have been demoralized by Gates and other traitors which really steams me since we are the ones who made Gates rich !!

I really really hope a patriot will design and build a new computer so we can dump Gates and the others !!!!!!! I can dream can't I ?

What we should do is dep0rt Gates and all other traitors that do not put Americans first and formost!!! We will even let them choose the country they want to go to, providing that country even wants them!!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTION ALERT REQUESTS!!
Please activists leave comments,at below link
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=79828
ALIPAC AUGUST FUND RAISER
PLEASE help ALIPAC stay in the fight against illegal immigration!!This has been extended to 9/11 ALIPAC's anniversary date, we have fallen short of the goal and have so many fights ahead of us, remember all small donations add up .
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=75673
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT ALIPAC???
__________________________________________________ __________-
THE FERN AND THE BAMBOO
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=80573

USPatriot,


Look at linux, it's FREE, can be installed on any IBM PC based platform, is stable, and very secure.

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Somebody should egg Bill Gates the next time he gets up and bemoans the fact he can't find high-tech workers in the US and needs to import them.I have also read reports US college kids are not choosing Science and Hi-Tech careers as they once did. DUH

They have been demoralized by Gates and other traitors which really steams me since we are the ones who made Gates rich !!

I really really hope a patriot will design and build a new computer so we can dump Gates and the others !!!!!!! I can dream can't I ?

They did, it's called a MAC.

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Somebody should egg Bill Gates the next time he gets up and bemoans the fact he can't find high-tech workers in the US and needs to import them.I have also read reports US college kids are not choosing Science and Hi-Tech careers as they once did. DUH

They have been demoralized by Gates and other traitors which really steams me since we are the ones who made Gates rich !!

I really really hope a patriot will design and build a new computer so we can dump Gates and the others !!!!!!! I can dream can't I ?

what we need to do is get rid of these so-called free trade agreements. That is what is hurting our jobs.