They get by with part-time jobs or loans from employed family members. They spend hours hunched over computers sending out resumes that go unanswered. They scurry along the networking treadmill, praying that a chance encounter will lead to a paycheck.
And, month after month, the long-term unemployed wonder if they’ll ever work again.
Jobless Americans who haven’t found work in at least 27 weeks, the federal tipping point for long-term unemployment, represent one of the more pernicious legacies of the Great Recession.
In Georgia, 51.3 percent of jobless have unsuccessfully sought work for at least six months. Only South Carolina (51.8 percent) and New Jersey (51.4 percent) post a higher percentage of long-term unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). And only New Jersey surpasses Georgia for the percentage of jobless unable to find work after a year’s search.
“I’m looking for anything I can find before my house goes into foreclosure,” said Bob Gershon, who lives in Barrow County and survives with part-time work. “When you’re up against the wall, and there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s a dangerous situation.”
The number of long-term jobless rises in Georgia even as the economy improves and the overall unemployment rate drops. In December 2007, when the recession technically began, 36,600 Georgians were classified as long-term unemployed. In February, 263,200 were.
“Will they ever go back to work?” asked Chris O’Leary, a senior economist with the nonprofit W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. “People likely will at some point. But figuring out how to get these people back on track is a serious problem, and a long-term challenge.”
Lengthy joblessness raises a welter of economic, political and social problems. A permanent, or semi-permanent class of unemployed Georgians without income will further tax the state’s social safety net of Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits.
Long-term lookers who find work can expect a lesser job than previously held, with an average 25 percent cut in earnings, economists say. The older jobless worker, frustrated by years of fruitless searching, may retire early with an already diminished 401(k) and depleted savings.
And long-term joblessness takes severe emotional, physical and psychological tolls.
“It preys on your mind. It’s mind-numbing. It’s frustrating -- things are out of your control,” said Gershon, 58. “You feel very inadequate and defeated. And whatever you try to do, something is in your way.”
Of the 13.5 million unemployed Americans last month, 46 percent have been looking for work longer than 27 weeks. And, despite a considerable dip in the overall U.S. jobless rate this year, the length of unemployment continues to rise. Last month, the average unemployed American spent nearly 10 months looking for work – the lengthiest time since the Depression.
Georgia, with 478,104 jobless in February, was hit harder than most states by the recession as unemployment repeatedly peaked at 10.4 percent before dropping to the current 10.2 percent Many of the jobless once worked in construction and real estate, industries that have yet to recover.
Companies, uncertain about the future, offer part-time or contract work which leaves job seekers unsatisfied and on unemployment rolls. Some jobless stick with unemployment benefits rather than accept work that pays $7 or $8 an hour.
Most of the long-term jobless, however, want to resume careers or start new ones. Jonesboro’s Peggy Brooks, 51, filled a resume with corporate marketing and human resources jobs before striking out on her own in 2004. She successfully continued the marketing work for a series of nonprofits until two years ago when the full-time well went dry.
Four hundred resumes and two interviews later, Brooks can’t find a job.
“I actually thought it would be easy to find a job based on my work experience,” she said. “Experience and accomplishments are usually what companies look for. Now, the opposite seems to be true. People in my age group are just not being hired.”
Americans aged 45 to 54 spent an average of 46 weeks looking for work last month, according to the BLS. In general, the older the worker, the longer the search. It took people aged 55 to 64 about a year to find a job.
Employers are wary of hiring older workers who may cost more, jump at better-paying jobs and retire sooner. Economists add that job skills erode the longer somebody is out of the work force and they become less marketable.
“Some of the long-term unemployed who are toward the end of their working life may transition to retirement sooner than they expected and may be forced to turn to Social Security at age 62,” said O’Leary, with the nonpartisan Upjohn Institute.“People who do go back to work won’t likely go back to what they had before.”
Meantime, they survive. Brooks’ husband, a warehouseman, covers most of the bills but can’t afford to fix his truck. Their mortgage isn’t paid, cable TV is history, meat makes less frequent appearances at the dinner table and their granddaughter won’t get the prized gown for a school pageant.
Sleepless nights haunt Gershon too. Laid off from a camera company, where he worked technical and customer service jobs, well before the recession began, Gershon gets by with part-time work from the American Kidney Fund and the city of Suwanee. He exhausted unemployment benefits, accepted food stamps and energy assistance and held garage sales to make ends meet.
Long-term joblessness “tears you down,” he said earlier this week after attending a job seminar at Goodwill in Lawrenceville.
“You get knocked down so many times it gets numbing,” he added. “It’s tough when you see other people getting by and you’re not. All I want is a legitimate chance to work.”
