Faces—and Fates—of the Jobless: Stories of some of the millions of Americans out of work for more than a year.

From the Wall Street Journal | Aug 9 ,2010

Although some employers report trouble finding workers, about 4.4 million Americans have been looking for jobs for at least a year—and that doesn't include the ones who have given up. Here are some of their stories.

The 19-Month Optimist

Through 19 months of unemployment, Paul Hansen, a 52-year-old from Phoenix, remained optimistic he would find a job like the one he lost—and he did.

Mr. Hansen was laid off in January 2009 from a $90,000-a-year post as vice president and director of accounting for Hensley Beverage Co., an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler where he had worked for more than 23 years. For a year and a half, Mr. Hansen spent five hours a day looking for a job as a controller or financial director, but hundreds of resumes had produced barely a nibble until this week. He is now weighing two offers—one at a mental-health-care firm, one at a light-industry staffing firm.

"It feels like that first job after college, feeling the anticipation, the anxiety," he says. "I feel like I'm a kid again; it feels really, really good."

 

Mr. Hansen says the first couple of months of unemployment were a welcome break. The subsequent unfruitful job search, though, was a frustrating roller-coaster ride.

"You get excited about a position, get a couple interviews, some calls for positions you think you're well qualified for, but with the number of applications employers are receiving, they sometimes leave you hanging and you don't get any word back," he says.

For the first year, Mr. Hansen lived off a severance package and the health benefits Hensley provided. Then he turned to unemployment benefits, which amounted to less than $12,000 a year.

He and his wife, a high-school teacher, cut back spending on clothing and entertainment. Mr. Hansen did more of the housework, took care of his newborn granddaughter and volunteered for a literacy group that assists adults seeking General Educational Development diplomas, a substitute for a high-school diploma. He spent an hour each day at gym to relieve stress—and to network.

Mr. Hansen suspects his lack of a Certified Public Accountant credential hurt him with prospective employers. Promotions within Hensley, the only place he had ever worked as an adult, gave him a false sense of security that he would never need the CPA, he says.

Mr. Hansen says he had five recruiters helping him. "Sometimes I need some motivation to get out there, a kick in the bottom to get going," he says. He persisted in looking for a job as a controller or other financial position.

"You can't throw yourself a pity party or stay isolated because that's not going to get you any place mentally or employment-wise," he says. Now that he has landed another job, Mr. Hansen says, he'll stay "until they push me out in a wheelchair."

—Emmeline Zhao

Reason to Dress Up Again

In September 2009, when he was featured in a Wall Street Journal story about long-term unemployment, Bill Jacobs, an Elgin, Ill., information-technology engineer, had been out of work nine months. He had few job prospects and was left demoralized by the few interviews he'd been through.

To get out of the house and feel productive, Mr. Jacobs and Missy, his half-German shepherd/half collie, did volunteer work with patients with Alzheimer's disease, depression and other ailments. Later, Mr. Jacobs, 36, and Missy added "Reading to Rover," a program in which schoolchildren read to dogs to help ease the anxiety of reading aloud.

"It wasn't IT-related and I wasn't getting paid, but it was something I could go out and do and still feel a sense of worth," says Mr. Jacobs, who made about $72,000 a year before he was laid off.

Thanks to unemployment checks, about $12,000 in savings and his wife's nursing job, the couple kept up their $1,400 monthly mortgage payment. Mr. Jacobs's wife worked an extra night shift. When he wasn't job hunting, he handled the housework and handiwork such as fixing the dishwasher and replacing a valve in the freezer, chores for which they once would have hired a repairman.

Mr. Jacobs said things got scary late last year. He had a single job interview between summer and fall.

Before the 2008 layoff, his longest spell of unemployment was three weeks during college. Now he'd been out of work a year. "I constantly felt bad about not contributing financially to my relationship," he said.

At a job fair in October, Mr. Jacobs left his resume with a dozen prospective employers, including a casino that said it had no need for IT workers but would keep his resume.

Desperate for cash, Mr. Jacobs last winter began playing Christmas songs on his trumpet on the streets of Chicago. The money was surprisingly good—about $15 an hour for two or so hours of playing. It was enough for groceries, but the experience paid more.

"About the time I started playing my trumpet downtown I started interviewing a lot. I noticed that during interviews my attitude was a little brighter because I had something to look forward to if the interview didn't work out," he says. "There wasn't as much self-punishment."

None of the interviews seemed to be leading to jobs, though, so Mr. Jacobs started brushing up on Herb Alpert songs. Then he saw a job opening at the casino where he had left his resume, and called to follow up.

In March, 17 months after he lost his job, Mr. Jacobs started at the casino at the same pay he had before the layoff. He wore a coat and tie on his first day, though his colleagues tend toward slacks and a dress shirt.

"It had been so long since I'd had a reason to dress up and feel proud of myself," he says.

—Conor Dougherty

'Looking at What I'll Make… I Have to Laugh

Reading a book makes Mary Lou Belmont feel guilty. The 56-year-old St. Augustine, Fla., resident has been unemployed since November 2008. In between sending out resumes and contacting potential employers, she catches herself walking in circles.

"I have trouble just sitting down to relax or walking to the beach," she says. "It feels like I shouldn't do any of that anymore."

Since she lost her job as a compliance manager with GMAC Home Services LLC, her finances have collapsed. Her husband's spray-foam-insulation business tanked with the real-estate bust, though he recently found a part-time marketing job.

They have accumulated more than $100,000 in debt from credit cards and a home-equity credit line since she has been out of work. Ms. Belmont's parents have been helping them out with cash.

Ms. Belmont, who has two grown stepchildren, hadn't had to look for a job in 15 years. But northeast Florida is home to many regional banking and insurance centers, and she assumed finding a job there would be easy. GMAC Home Services had given her 15 weeks of severance, and she was eligible for 18 months of discounted health benefits.

After failing to find a compliance position in the region, Ms. Belmont has become open to just about any job, she says, noting that she sends out about 20 resumes a week.

In September, she was a finalist for a compliance position that paid less than half her previous $117,000 salary.

Last week, Ms. Belmont was offered a part-time job with a local nonprofit that helps low-income seniors. The job, which involves administrative work, pays a little above minimum wage.

"I'm happy to be doing something productive, but this isn't a career position," she says.

In June, she and her husband agreed to live apart if she can find a full-time job outside northeast Florida.

They're also trying to sell their five-bedroom, five-bathroom home, listed at $929,000, to move into a cheaper place, but they haven't yet found a buyer.

"Putting our home on the market was like admitting we had failed," she says.

Ms. Belmont's health benefits ran out last month, and her new position doesn't offer them. For now, she'll go without insurance.

"Looking at what I'll make per day now, I have to laugh," she says. "I used to spend that much in a day without thinking about it. It puts things in perspective."

—Joe Light

A Journeyman Trying for Entry Level

For Greg Shields, who spent three decades working at printing companies before he hit the unemployment line a year and a half ago, experience used to be a good thing. It was how he worked up to a $27-an-hour wage and a big reason he was able to find work across a half-dozen states through his career.

But now, he says, his long resume is a liability. "I'm a journeyman in the printing business, but now I'm in competition for entry-level jobs," says Mr. Shields, a 53-year-old with a 2-year-old daughter.

Mr. Shields, who lives in Bellevue, Wash., was laid off as a prepress technician by printer AllpakTrojan in February 2009. "I've always been able to find a job, my entire life," Mr. Shields says. "This is an anomaly—it's weird and it's scary." AllpakTrojan confirmed Mr. Shields had worked there but declined to comment further.

At first, Mr. Shields focused on jobs with his previous wage—roughly $55,000 a year— and health benefits. The work didn't come, so he started cold-calling print shops. His opening line: "Hi, my name is Greg Shields and I'm a prepress guy. I've got 30 years in the business and I'm calling to see how you're staffed today."

Besides printing gigs, he has applied for security-guard and hospital-laundry-room jobs.

His $600-a-week unemployment benefits are set to expire in August. In May 2009, he filed for bankruptcy. He moved in with his girlfriend, cutting his rent to $300 from about $1,500 in the house he rented before. He's hoping he doesn't have to sell his 2006 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

He has joint custody of his daughter, born shortly before he lost his job, and shares the cost of raising her with the girl's mother. She is the reason he doesn't look for jobs in another state.

"What has been positive is the experience I've had with my daughter," Mr. Shields says. "I've gotten to take care of her this whole time. What father wouldn't want to do that?"

At home at least, his job description has changed considerably in the past year and a half. At the beginning of his odyssey through long-term unemployment, child care consisted mostly of feeding, burping, rocking and diaper changing. But as his daughter has gone from infant to toddler, there are new activities like trips to the playground and practicing some of the 20 words in her growing vocabulary.

When he doesn't have his daughter, Mr. Shields spends most of the day looking for jobs online and submitting resumes when he sees something that sounds plausible. When he does have her, his searches are limited to naptime hours. Recently, though, even those searches have been pleasantly interrupted. "She can open the door now."

—Conor Dougherty

Back Home—to Peru

Tony Estrada, 60 years old and out of work for more than two years, moved in with his parents earlier this year—in Peru.

Jobless benefits exhausted and unable to pay the rent, Mr. Estrada, an American citizen who emigrated from Peru three decades ago, says his son put him on a plane back to Lima in June. Since then, he and his parents have moved to Puerto Rico to be near other family members. "I can't believe that this could have happened to me," Mr. Estrada says.

When he came to the U.S., he says in a telephone interview, "I thought there was a chance to get a better job and better pay. I pursued, like other people, the American Dream."

For a while it seemed he had attained his own slice of it. His three children, each with families of their own, grew up in the U.S. Mr. Estrada, divorced twice, made $17 an hour at a Lowe's Cos. warehouse in Riverside County, Calif., and drove to work in his Mazda6.

Then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Mr. Estrada took time off to undergo surgery in August 2007 and recuperate. Lowe's health insurance paid the tab. When he was ready to go back to work in April 2008, he says, the company told him he had been gone too long. He was away longer than the 12 weeks of unpaid leave guaranteed by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Lowe's wouldn't comment on personnel matters.

Mr. Estrada says his boss told him he would be eligible to return in six months, but as he waited, the economy spiraled downward.

His $390 a week in unemployment benefits ran out earlier this year. He asked the auto dealer to take back his Mazda. "Nice car," he said, but "I couldn't afford to make the payments."

It wasn't long before he was unable to pay his rent. Friends offered rooms but only if he paid rent. He couldn't. His children turned him away. "They said, 'Dad, I'm sorry, but we can't take you—there's no room,' " Mr. Estrada says.

So he left the country. "If I had stayed in California I would be at this moment walking on the street with my grocery cart," he says.

He has applied for jobs at factories, the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. embassy in Peru. If he can't find a job, he'll wait it out with his family until he's eligible for Social Security at age 62.

"I thought everything's going to be fine," Mr. Estrada says. "The USA is the strongest country in the world. ... I guess I was wrong."

—Sara Murray

'Living on the White House Lawn'

Andrea Prentis is marking an unhappy anniversary. She lost her job as billing coordinator for Alliance Building Services Inc., a New York-based janitorial-services company, in August 2008.

"Dozens and dozens of interviews" later, she has nearly exhausted her unemployment benefits.

Her mortgage holder has allowed her to stay in her two-bedroom Irvington, N.J., house even though it could foreclose at any time. "I owe more than the house is worth," says the 40-year-old. "They tell me, quite frankly, there is no market for the house. They'd rather have someone in the house looking after it than having it empty and going down."

But now, she says, things are coming to a head. "I'm just looking for any kind of work," she says. "Hopefully I can stay in my house but if not, I am surprised I have stayed here as long as I have." She has considered filing for bankruptcy but opted against it, thinking it would hasten the loss of her home.

Ms Prentis, single with a business and accounting degree from Drake Business School, worked nearly eight years as an audit clerk for the Associated Press in the early 2000s.

She had worked only five months at Alliance when she was let go; before that, she worked 14 months in a similar position for a different firm. Alliance didn't return phone calls seeking comment about Ms. Prentis's departure from the company.

Ms. Prentis said she was good as a billing coordinator. "Now it's like I am a dinosaur," Ms. Prentis says. "The skills I have are no longer needed."

She went to one professional job-search agency, but then her case manager was let go. She now visits the state employment office and scans websites such as Monster.com for accounting and bookkeeping jobs. The rejections are "more humiliating than anything," she says. "I quite frankly don't know what the problem is. You don't know what employers are looking for anymore."

On the Internet, Ms. Prentis says, she keeps seeing news about people being laid off. "I don't see how things are going to get any better," she says, especially for those unemployed more than 99 weeks, the maximum period for unemployment benefits. "They'll just see more people living on the street. Me, I'll be living on the White House lawn."

—Gary Fields