As the unemployment rate drifts downward, the receding tide reveals two different landscapes: harsh terrain for the long-term unemployed, gentler ground for everyone else.
Georgia’s rate fell to 7.1 percent in February, the state reported Thursday, from 7.3 percent the month before.
If you are new to the job search or – even better – if you are looking for work from the comfort of your current job, the continuing decline means your chances of landing a new position are probably as good as they’ve been in several years. But the odds grow much tougher if you have been a jobseeker for six months or more.
“The market has split between long-term and short-term unemployed,” said economist Jeffrey Wenger, a professor of public policy analysis at the University of Georgia. “The economic prospects of the long-term unemployed are pretty dim.”
Even worse: studies show that the better the job market gets, the more long-term unemployment counts against a candidate, Wenger said. “Employers take it as a signal about someone’s productivity.”
The new rate is the lowest since September 2008, the month when the collapse of Lehman Bros. triggered a financial crisis and turned a mild recession into the worst economic plunge since the 1930s.
More than five years later, Georgia still has 337,443 officially unemployed workers – and that doesn’t count anyone who has given up the hunt. More ominously, 45.3 percent of the state’s jobless have been out of work at least six months. That proportion has come down from the all-time high above 56 percent, but is still far above normal levels.
“We may see a decline in the long-term unemployed, but this is likely due to people dropping out of the labor force,” Wenger said.
The state has 95,000 fewer people in the workforce than in September 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
It is easy to feel discouraged, said Patricia Hancock, 51, of Buford. She had worked for a textbook company for 16 years until the firm was purchased. Its Atlanta office closed in mid-2012 and she was laid off.
But she is still job-hunting nearly two years later. She has been looking for a job as an executive assistant, she said. “I have worked since I was 14 years old. I would never have dreamed that I’d be sitting without a job this far out.”
She’s been burning through her savings, taking care of her teenage daughter and hoping for a break, she said. “There’s got to be a place for me somewhere. I just haven’t found it.”
Yet the overall job market is improving, said Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, with layoffs down and job growth up. “This is the eighth month in a row that Georgia’s unemployment rate has declined,” he noted in a statement with the release of February numbers.
Since early in the recession, Georgia joblessness has run ahead of the national rate , which is currently 6.7 percent. But the gap has been slowly closing.
The new jobs, like the job-seekers, come in various flavors.
Much of the economists’ talk is about high-paying tech jobs, which are seen as crucial to the area’s health. But the economy is also adding some not-quite-traditional jobs that offer the worker flexibility at low cost to the employer.
For instance, soon-to-be-launched Kanga is a delivery service that aims to exploit both the consumer’s desire to have items quickly in hand and the local stores’ urge to compete with the big online retailers, said Everett Steele, company president.
Kanga will partner with stores to deliver what local customers order, he said. The company is hiring up to 100 contract employees — couriers who will be paid per task.
Many Atlanta companies are adding employees, said Emily Carlson, senior area vice president for national staffing company Randstad.
Tech skills especially have been in demand, but warehouse and logistics jobs like equipment operators also are being filled, she said. “We are seeing the market look like what it was back in 2006.”
And in an improving market, even some long-term job-seekers get offers – albeit after a struggle.
Garry Pryor, 62, of Stone Mountain was laid off from his job as manager of a church book store in 2010. The ordained minister said he worked at both saving money and keeping a good attitude.
“I really downsized,” he said. “Instead of a good meal, I’d just have crackers and tuna. But you’ve gotta stay positive. You’ve gotta keep at it.”
In the fall, an executive at a large corporation saw Pryor’s profile online and gave him a call. They got together, they talked and Pryor got hired as an accountant. “I haven’t had benefits for so long, it’s like a new world.”
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