Thread: SC-Newcomers learn hard facts on unemployment

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaki ... 00558.html

Newcomers learn hard facts on unemployment
Rock Hill is hit especially hard, and many don't leave despite hard times.
By Matt Garfield
mgarfield@heraldonline.com
Posted: Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010
Hoping to find what they called a new beginning, Elbio and Amanda Suarez left the Pacific Northwest in a Ford Thunderbird and drove until they got to York County.

Five months later, out of work and short on money, they found something else: a shelter program for homeless families.

The Suarezes are among a wave of newcomers who came to this growing region in search of better job prospects. Now, experts say, they are one reason local unemployment has reached a crisis stage.

Rock Hill officials declared unemployment a crisis after the jobless rate in the city rose to 23 percent in October, nearly twice the S.C. average. The number fell to 21.2 percent at the end of November, the most recent figure available.

The Charlotte area's jobless rate was 11.8 percent in November, down from 12 percent the month before. In Mecklenburg County, the rate dropped to 11 percent from 11.1 percent in October.

"We had a labor force influxing to this area because they were trying to leave areas that were already depressed," said Lori Thomas, an analyst in the city finance department. "A lot of times, they would bring a spouse, and that person came here looking for work."

Rock Hill's labor force - the number of people working or seeking work - grew by 26.5 percent between 2000 and 2008, three times faster than the S.C. average over that period, federal figures show. The most recent tally put 32,503 people in the category.

"I heard it was good work here," Amanda Suarez said one morning last week at Family Promise, a center near downtown Rock Hill that coordinates shelters at area churches.

"We love it down here. It's just getting a job that pays good enough..." she said.

The Suarez family arrived last fall. A three-day journey that started in Seattle ended at a rest stop off Interstate 77, where the family spent its first two nights in South Carolina - sleeping in the Ford Thunderbird. The couple have two children, ages 11 and 7.

York County caught their attention after the Suarezes, both evangelical Christians, read books by Rick Joyner, leader of MorningStar Ministries on the old PTL grounds in Fort Mill.

A warm, friendly place in the Bible Belt, they thought. The decision was sealed when Elbio Suarez lost his job at a rehabilitation center in Seattle, where he delivered meals to patients for $9 an hour. Amanda served food in employee cafeterias at Microsoft and Boeing and worked in an elderly care home.

Once in the region, they stay

Once families get here, they typically don't leave, said Lou Pantuosco, a labor studies expert at Winthrop University.

"Since the 1970s, the trend has been from north to south or fairly local moves to adjacent states," Pantuosco said. "South Carolinians have few options for mobility. All of their neighboring states have double-digit unemployment rates."

For the Suarezes, the new jobs they had hoped to find haven't materialized. Clients at Family Promise must apply for four jobs a day to remain part of the program, but the Suarezes are finding the upper hand belongs to employers.

"They're picky in what they're looking for because there are so many people out there (to choose from)," Amanda Suarez said. "Before, a lot of people didn't even care if you had your high school diploma."

More families are showing up to Family Promise with similar stories, said director Jennifer Coye. The organization changed its name last year from Interfaith Hospitality Network.

"We started asking people, 'Why Rock Hill?' They just said, 'We thought it would be a better place than wherever we were from,'" Coye said.

Elbio Suarez collects a $235 weekly unemployment check, more than he thinks he could make at a fast-food restaurant. He's taking classes at York Technical College to earn a welding certificate.

"I won't be able to raise my family just working at McDonald's," he said. "Seven, eight dollars an hour, that's not going to be enough. I'm the head of the household."

"They're picky in what they're looking for because there are so many people out there (to choose from)," Amanda Suarez said. "Before, a lot of people didn't even care if you had your high school diploma."

Don't forget to thank illegal immigration fcr the severely depressed wages too.