The New Face of Unemployment

BY the standards of past times of trouble in the U.S. economy, the current unemployment rate of 5.5% is not particularly high. That fact does not, of course, cushion the psychological shock experienced by people who have been fired. Many got their first jobs during the buoyant 1960s, have never been laid off before and do not quite know what has hit them. In many ways, today's unemployed are different from those of earlier years. Though members of minority groups and blue-collar workers are the most vulnerable to layoffs, a surprising number of jobless people are unpoor and unblack.

White Losses. All the rise in unemployment during this year's third quarter occurred among whites; the black rate held unchanged at 8.5%. That is 1.7 times as much as the white rate, but the ratio of black to white unemployment usually runs 2 to 1 and is now the lowest in 17 years. One reason is that black workers are concentrated in the service trades and government jobs, where layoffs have been fewer than in manufacturing. Another is that there are not many blacks in the depressed aerospace industry. In addition, black factory workers by now have built up some seniority, so that they no longer fit the cliche of "last hired, first fired."

By contrast, the mostly white construction industry is in a deep slump, outside of a few cities. Unemployment among hardhats in September reached 13.8%, the highest since 1963. White-collar workers constitute another group no longer immune to layoffs. Though the unemployment rate among them is only 2.8%, the number of jobless white-collar workers has jumped in the past year from 932,000 to 1,258,000. Unemployment has also been rising fast among workers in farming, lumber, machinery, and--even before the strike --the auto industry.

Executive Layoffs. Seasoned executives and high-paid technicians are feeling the sting of unemployment. The Labor Department reports that the number of jobless "professional and managerial" workers has climbed in the past year from 279,000 to 409,000. In many cities, voluntary job-placement centers have opened up to teach these men the skills they have forgotten: how to write a resume, how to look for a job, what to do while waiting.

Typically, New Yorker Robert Kertz lost his $350-a-week job as a senior planning analyst at Eastern Airlines last January; since then, he has worked only two months during the summer as a consultant. Airlines are not hiring, and Kertz finds that no other employers have any interest in him, since he has spent his entire career in that business. He and his wife must try to meet basic living expenses of $600 to $700 a month on $75-a-week unemployment compensation. In Manhattan, Michael Parsons, laid off from a Madison Avenue job, has come up with a solution that might occur only to an adman. He circulates letters proclaiming himself "president and sole employee" of The Adman Works for Bread Inc., and offers to paint studio apartments for $85 v. the going rate of about $200. His letters bravely warn prospective customers to take the bargain before he finds another job.

Graduating to Joblessness. Young people are the worst off. Teen-age unemployment has risen in the past year from 12.9% to 16.8%. In September, the jobless rate among men aged 20 to 24 reached 11%, the highest in nine years. Many of the men mustered out of the armed forces this year are still searching for work. For example, Jim Krauland, 23, returned to Seattle in April after spending almost four years in the Marines. "I had been a cook," he says, "so I figured that I would be able to get something in that lin; without trouble." He found only one temporary job making sandwiches, and he now subsists on $66 weekly unemployment compensation. "Two friends of mine who got out about the same time that I did are going back into the service because there is no work."

Graduating students can no longer count on a choice of job offers, or even one. Bruce Bronn, 23, prudently began looking for a job last January while he was still a senior at Chicago's Columbia College, seeking any possible position in journalism, advertising or public relations. Some 100 interviews later, he is a veteran of the jobless rolls, living with his mother and struggling to meet monthly car payments. His $45-a-week unemployment compensation runs out in December. "It is frustrating, it is maddening," he says. "I went to school four years to learn a profession, and still I cannot get a job. I had to graduate from college in order to be unemployed." He is beginning to wonder if he was really as lucky as he once thought to draw number 365 in the draft lottery.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.