Barbara Headrick reached the pinnacle of frustration when she applied for a sales job with Harry & David, the fruit-basket distributors.
She didn’t get it.
And that’s when the 65-year-old realized just how battered the job market is.
“I interview well,” Headrick said. “I’m neat. I’m clean. I’m knowledgeable, and I’m well-spoken. But I didn’t even get a job with Harry & David. I didn’t even get a job selling sausage.”
Headrick and her husband have been unemployed for a year, laid off from sales jobs in the building industry. They’re worried about buying Christmas presents for their grandchildren next month, keeping the lights on and holding on to their home in Monroe.
And they’re not alone.
Accounts of the nation crawling out of recession don’t ring true for job-seekers, many of whom are on their second or third extension of unemployment-benefits. They’re wondering: If the economy is improving, where are the jobs?
They’re with consumer demand — somewhere in economic limbo.
Technically, the economy is recovering. But the recovery isn’t strong enough to convince businesses to start hiring, so unemployment could remain high for some time.
“With such a slow rebound, unemployment could well stay high for several years to come,” said Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve bank in San Francisco. “In other words, our recovery is likely to feel like something well short of good times.”
Good times. Headrick remembers them, but they seem a long time ago.
“I’m just at my wits’ end,” she said. “We don’t have any hope of things turning around here soon. We’re just hanging on.”
‘Running in the red’
Snohomish resident James Robins works in the trucking industry and watched his employer dole out layoffs and pay cuts and freeze pensions as rival companies competed for the limited work.
So far, seniority has helped him hold on to his job.
His wife, Joyce, wasn’t so lucky. She was cut from an administrative job at Safeco Insurance two years ago. She’s been through several unemployment extensions since then, and headed back to school at Everett Community College for administrative training in the health-care industry.
“We still have our house,” James Robins said. “We’re still making our payments. Everything is pretty much the same. The future is what we’re really worried about the most.”
At some point, their lifeline will run out.
“You can’t keep going, running in the red,” he said.
President Barack Obama signed a 20-week unemployment extension into law earlier this month, buying the long-unemployed a few more months. The act provided a 14-week extension in all states, with an additional six weeks in states with the highest levels of unemployment, which includes Washington.
Since high unemployment is likely to continue for some time, some lawmakers are already drafting bills authorizing further federal extensions.
In Washington state, the extension means a total of 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.
Statistics released earlier this month showed there were 190,000 people in Washington collecting benefits.
Between May through October, more than 7,500 workers used up the former maximum of 79 weeks of benefits, said a spokeswoman for the state Employment Security Department. Without the extension, roughly 19,000 workers would likely have run out of benefits by the end of the year.
The national unemployment rate edged up to 10.2 percent in October, its highest point since 1982. Snohomish County reached that same rate in October, one of the highest of Washington state’s 39 counties.
The state’s jobless rate for November will be released next month. Economists say holiday hiring may bolster statistics slightly.
Health hazards
Joblessness doesn’t just take away Christmas celebrations and houses. It can wreak havoc on relationships, self-esteem — even health.
A report released by the Snohomish County Health District this month examined the link between unemployment and deteriorating health, showing unemployed workers reported 11 poor-health days per month, compared with five for job holders.
Not surprisingly, the unemployed workers surveyed were less likely to have health insurance. They were also more likely to smoke cigarettes.
Bonnie Westfall saw her health deteriorate after a year of unemployment. The Bothell resident survived seven rounds of layoffs at an international-travel agency, only to be cut in the eighth.
About 300 job applications and one year later, the stress is taking a toll on her health. She has been in and out of the emergency room for the last few months, but continues to look for work in the travel industry.
She and her husband Robert decided to refinance their home with a 30-year mortgage — meaning they’ll own the house outright when they’re 86 years old.
“If we live that long,” Westfall said. “This has just hit me like a ton of bricks. All we’ve done is put money into our home, because all we wanted to do is retire.”
For now, her husband is holding things together working for the Hobart Corp., a manufacturer of commercial food-industry equipment.
“He’s working as hard as a man can work — we’re talking 10 hours a day, six or seven days a week,” Westfall said.
She keeps looking for seasonal or permanent work. So far, she’s had no luck — not even at Home Depot, Lowe’s or Costco, where she used to work.
School isn’t an option, she said. Her debt-to-income-ratio makes loans improbable, if not impossible.
Combined with her failing health and insurance frustrations related to her job status, Westfall said, “It’s just hell.”
She added: “Every possible thing that could go wrong with a person’s life has gone wrong with our lives. We’ve done nothing but try to be good citizens for as long as we’ve been able to.”
Read Amy Rolph’s small-business blog at www.heraldnet.com/TheStorefront. Contact her at 425-339-3029 or arolph@heraldnet.com.
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