Scenes from a ‘Jobless Recovery‘: Age, Disability & Lack of Skills Make Job Search Even Tougher

For many newcomers, moving to Northern Michigan means achieving a dream of the good life “up north.“ But for Mark Blakslee of Lansing, its been a frustrating ordeal with unemployment with no end in sight.
“I‘ve been here 10 months now and haven‘t had any luck yet,“ Blakslee said last week while checking out the job postings at the Michigan Works! office in Traverse City.
“I had a job for 15 years in Lansing, but when my wife and I took a chance to move up here, I‘m finding after 10 months that it‘s not quite what we had hoped for,“ he says.
Many in the state are feeling Blakslee‘s pain. “Michigan has lost 162,300 manufacturing jobs since January 2001, reflecting losses in the manufacturing sector nationwide,“ notes U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. Locally, layoffs at Lear Corp., an auto parts plant, reflect that trend. Meanwhile, proposed layoffs of school liaison deputies, animal control officers and rural health clinic employees in Grand Traverse County offer an indication that it‘s not just manufacturing jobs that are slipping away. Across the state, Michigan colleges, police departments, arts organizations and government services are feeling the threat of layoffs in the wake of the state‘s $2 billion budget crisis.
But these colliding forces and statistics don‘t mean much at the ground level of an unemployment office, where the pain is closer to the bone. In Blakslee‘s case, at the age of 54, he feels he has even more to battle than a tough economy.
“I have a few things against me,“ he confides. “I‘m finding out up here that age has something to do with it when it comes to getting a job. I also have a slight disability in my lower back, so I don‘t now how I‘ll react to a job until I start one. And I didn‘t do so well when I was in school... I didn‘t have any additional training except what I got in the Marine Corps.“

TRIPLE THREAT
The triple threat of age, disability and lack of education or marketable skills is one shared by many seeking jobs at the Michigan Works! office. In Blakslee‘s case, he broke his back several years ago and now has slippage between his second and third vertebrae. Prior to moving north, he worked at Auto Owners Insurance Co. in Lansing, a virtual paper palace where his job in shipping & receiving involved moving tons of the company‘s 3,000 different forms for 15 years. “My hands, knees and joints got so bad during my last few months there that I could barely get up and down the stairs when I got home,“ he recalls.
Brad Sherred, 46, is another aging job-seeker who‘s hampered by a disability. “I loaded beer trucks for 12 years and ended up hurting my back,“ he says.
That was back in 1990 when Sherred was 34. His injury, caused by loading 12 trucks a day with tons of brew for years on end in Kent County, resulted in back surgery and the fusing of his fifth lumbar disc area on both sides of his spine.
For years Sherred was unable to get comfortable, either sitting or standing for long. For a time he had to have a battery inserted in his back to stimulate his spine. He‘s under doctor‘s orders not to get any job requiring him to sit for more than two hours at a stretch. A person who thrived on physical activity, Sherred says the worst part of seeking a job is that he can no longer do the employment he loves. “I can‘t do manual labor anymore or drive too far,“ he notes.

‘JOBLESS RECOVERY‘
Here‘s one for the philosophers: is the economy really on the rebound if it‘s a “jobless recovery“?
That‘s a buzz phrase coined in 2002, when Time magazine‘s board of economists were among those comparing the year to the jobless recession of 1992. Ironically, a new “jobless recovery“ story was on the front page of a newspaper at the unemployment agency the day interviews were conducted there for this story. A jobless recovery means that although the economy is expected to grow in the year ahead, millions of jobs could be gone forever.
A year ago this October, unemployment in the U.S. was 5.9 percent. Since then, things have gone from bad to worse. Almost 600,000 workers lost their jobs in the last seven months, according to a new study by the University of Michigan. Close to 3 million jobs have been lost in the U.S. over a two-year period, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“In terms of employment growth, the current recovery is the worst on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking employment in 1939,“ the EPI claims.
The U.S. Dept. of Labor reports that the country‘s unemployment rate is currently 6.1 percent, with a loss of 93,000 jobs in August. That means that 8.9 million Americans are currently out of work. More than 1.7 million Americans have been out of work for six months or more. “Of the 1.7 million, 503,000 were discouraged workers -- persons who were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them,“ notes a Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Closer to home, there are 325,000 unemployed workers in the state, according to the Michigan Department of Career Development.

HOPEFUL
But on the bright side, there are still 137.6 million Americans on the job, the Labor Dept. reports.
Unemployed workers such as Sherred and Blakslee are looking hard for that bright side. For Blakslee, it means considering a move to Denver or North Dakota where his wife has a chance at a job transfer. “I don‘t find a lot of jobs on the screen here,“ he says, referring to the computers which display job postings at the Michigan Works! agency. “But there‘s scads of stuff out there. I‘d certainly have a better chance out there in Denver or North Dakota than here if they don‘t discriminate against my age.“
Not only that, but Blakslee is hopeful that a move west will produce better paying jobs than those offering $8, $9 or $10 per hour here in notoriously chintzy Northern Michigan.
Rick Buckhalter, who was laid off at Lear Corp. in Traverse City this year, says the region‘s low-paying jobs create a disincentive to look for work. He‘s relying on some savings to make it through his jobless stint in the hope of being called back to the auto parts maker.
Like Blakslee, Sherred is also looking elsewhere, but for a different reason. When he got injured in 1990, he was making $27,000 per year, and his child care payments for a son and daughter by separate marriages were established on that figure. No exception has been made for his back injury and steep decline in income.
“They‘re not willing to back off very far on that amount,“ he says of the Friend of the Court, adding that the state garnishes his unemployment check to the tune of $95 a week for child care, leaving him with $68 to live on.
Blakslee has had jobs, such as selling repossessed mobile homes, but often feels like a marked man in firms where the employers are garnishing his pay for child support. “The employers know that you‘ve got problems because you can‘t make it on half-pay, so you‘re the first to go,“ he says.
Although he radiates a sense of optimism and strength, Blakslee has seen more hardship than most in his 13-year struggle with employment. “The only reason I‘m not in a homeless shelter is because my parents took me in,“ he says.
But he still has high hopes. He‘s hoping to land a placement in a school for the disabled in Plainwell, near Kalamazoo, which will provide his room and board while he earns a technical degree in telecommunications.
“I‘m almost forced to do this because if I were making $8 or $9 or even $10 bucks an hour, it‘s not going to support me because the state wants half of what I make. I‘m trapped -- I‘m going down this slide.“

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Fear, loathing & technology

A visit to the unemployment office used to mean long lines of dejected applicants and numerous bureaucratic forms to fill out. Ironically, those days are over, with unemployment benefit claims going online to the internet or telephone; but it‘s a disturbing development for many applicants who fear the loss of face-to-face service.
On Sept. 30, the unemployment benefits section of the Michigan Employment Securities Commission (MESC) at Michigan Works! offices around the state will close. Over the past year, the state has been converting to a self-filing system, whereby jobless applicants apply for benefits via the internet or telephone, crossing their fingers, perhaps, in hopes that they aren‘t playing endless phone tag with answering machines.
Has there been consternation?
“Definitely,“ says Jane Sage, operations manager for Michigan Works! “The gal who answers the phone here has been dealing with a tremendous range of feelings from people who call in.“
Then too, people who call a state “help“ line for assistance report that they have to call, and call, and call to get answers.
“Generally speaking, it‘s going to be a better system, but there‘s going to be a transition,“ Sage says.
Staff at Michigan Works! have been the brunt of rage by some unemployed workers, who think that the organization is part of the MESC. Actually, they are two separate entities: Michigan Works! is an initiative organized under a non-profit agency funded by the state and has nothing to do with the MESC.
But, for the unemployed, the Michigan Works! office may be their only connection to a human face during a time of extreme crisis. This summer, a staffer notes, a laid-off truck driver showed up at the office and was furious that his needs couldn‘t be met. He threatened the staff with violence and the police were called to the office.

COMPUTER AIDS
Still, if you‘re unemployed, state assistance for your job search has never been better.
Sage notes that Michigan Works! has numerous resources for the unemployed, including a computerized database of available jobs, resumè software, classes, and employment counselors who seemed eager to help visitors during a visit to the office.
Michigan Works! offices also offer a computerized Talent Bank, whereby you enter your job skills, history and employment, producing matches with possible employers. “We have a good base of employers in the area and statewide there are thousands,“ Sage says. View On Our Website