UNEMPLOYMENT: Numbers lean toward recession

Resumes are posted, applications go out, messages are left for employers via U.S. Postal Service, e-mail and phone. Then: nothing.

Job seekers are finding an increasingly tough job market.

For Linda Woore, 63, of Winder, there is a note of bafflement as she talks about her search.

“I have worked my whole adult life,” she said. “I have never had a problem finding a job. Never.”

After being laid off from a receptionist position in Duluth —- a long drive to a job she liked —- she started looking. “I have left my name everywhere —- I mean, everywhere,” she said. “I even went to Publix and asked. They laughed and said, ‘No, we’re not hiring. We’re cutting back on hours.’ “

Many other businesses are cutting people: About 479,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, the government reported Thursday.

That compares to the late summer’s average of 450,000 a week. More dramatically, filings are up about 50 percent from the same period last year. About 3.715 million Americans receive unemployment benefits now. That was a slight decline from the previous week, but is up from about 2.6 million a year ago.

Woore’s fruitless search is not unusual, said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project: Older workers typically face the longest periods of unemployment after a layoff. Overall, more than one in five laid-off workers is unemployed for more than a half-year.

Theresa Metzger, 36, was laid off from her job in the registrar’s office at Spelman College a year ago.

She ran through her unemployment benefits, then received a few months more when Congress extended the payments.

Meanwhile, the single mother of two has searched in vain for an office job, hoping to make about $30,000 a year. “It would be nice to get more, but that would cover the basics,” she said.

She is an aspiring songwriter, hoping for a break. But in the meantime, she clicks her way through the usual Internet job sites. She has not even been offered an interview.

“The job market is just dry,” she said. “It is beyond discouraging. And it may get worse before it gets better.”

Georgia’s job market is already worse than average, rising in September to 6.5 percent unemployment.

By October, 23,067 workers had run through the extra 13 weeks of unemployment benefits Congress had mandated, according to the National Employment Law Project.

Wayne Glasman, 61, of Roswell, saw his unemployment benefits run out several weeks ago.

Laid off in the summer of 2007 from a job as a researcher for a medical firm after eight years, he has pumped resumes galore through the Internet.

“I am still looking —- I sure am,” he said. “But at this point, I am so discouraged. I can’t do it with much enthusiasm.”

He is spending $437 a month to keep his health insurance, he said. “And I cannot afford it. I am just about picking my bank accounts dry. And I have no idea what I am going to do.”

Even in a recession, millions of people find jobs each month.

But the odds have been getting longer as the economy has slowed, weighed down by a sodden real estate market and a crippled credit system.

The nation’s gross domestic product declined during the past three months at a 0.3 percent pace, the second negative quarter of the past year, the government reported Thursday.

It would have been much worse but for military spending and exports. Spending by consumers, who account for more than 70 percent of the economy, fell 3.1 percent —- the first decline since 1991, said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It is consumer spending that is the key.”

Unless the economy is growing at a pace of 2 or 2.5 percent a year, the unemployment rate will probably increase, Bernstein said. “We expect the unemployment rate to be 8 percent or higher by the end of next year.”

Next Friday, the government releases data on October jobs —- the first month likely to show the fall’s layoffs, Stettner said. “None of the official job numbers have shown the steep decline that we have seen.”

Not all fields are cutting. Some —- health care, especially —- are expanding. And in a few regions, recession is just a rumor. Texas, for example, has led the nation in job growth.

Unfortunately, Atlanta and Georgia have been at the other end of the spectrum.

During the past year, Atlanta lost 1.36 percent of its jobs, ranking 262 out of 311 metro areas. In sheer quantity, Atlanta shed 33,600 jobs. Only Detroit, Los Angeles and Phoenix lost more, according to rankings calculated by Charles McMillion, chief economist at Washington-based MBG Information Services.

In general, the odds against getting hired are longest against workers with little experience and education, he said.

Concetta Hardnett, 20, is studying at Atlanta Technical College while living with her mother, but she needs a job for each day after class.

She has been looking since she was laid off in June from CVS. “Anybody who has a job, you’d better keep it,” she said. “Times are too hard for you to quit it.”