Richmond-area jobless press hunt for work

Richmond's unemployed workers did the best they could to shake off yesterday's bad news that the U.S. unemployment rate hit double digits.

They got back to the main task: finding work.

The nation's jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent last month from 9.8 percent. The unemployment rate is the highest in 26½ years.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the number of people on employers' payrolls fell by 190,000 -- more than economists, who just last week were hailing the end of the recession, had forecast.

Many economist believe the rate is likely to go higher.

"I haven't had an interview -- it's extremely discouraging when you know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other people out here looking," said Sally Grady, laid off in January after 27 years at now-defunct Circuit City Stores Inc.

"But I'm keeping on. I have a notebook of who I've contacted this thick," she said, hands held about a foot apart.

The statistics bureau's job-market report yesterday said the number of long-term unemployed -- people out of work for 27 weeks or more -- barely changed in October, standing at 5.6 million.

So was the number of people -- 9.3 million -- forced to work part time because their hours were cut or they've been unable to find full-time work.

An additional 2.4 million Americans weren't counted as unemployed in the official statistics even though they aren't working, because they hadn't looked for a job for four weeks before the bureau's latest survey.

Plenty of Richmonders were looking, though.

Esther Artis typed away at one of the computers at the Capital Region Workforce Center on Williamsburg Road in eastern Henrico County looking for work.

Laid off in March from her job in Circuit City's imaging department, she sends out a half dozen job applications a week. The former Fortune 500 retailer closed its last stores in March.

"I did accounts payable. I did accounts receivable. I did any new job that came into the department," she said.

Now, she's trying a temporary staffing company she's heard is looking.

"I say: a temporary job is better than no job."

For now, businesses seem to be saying a temporary job is better than a regular hire. Temporary help services added 34,000 jobs last month.

Christine Chmura, president of Chmura Economics and Analytics in Richmond, said that's a good sign -- businesses turn to temporary help when they think things are getting better but aren't quite sure enough yet to start hiring.

Employment only tends to rise long after a recovery starts.

Another good sign: A second look at data from August and September showed 91,000 fewer people than the bureau first reported actually lost jobs, she said.

"Usually, when the economy's going down, the revisions go down. Heading into a recovery, you get upward revisions," she said.

But Virginia Commonwealth University professor George E. Hoffer worries it will be tough to get past the fact that the unemployment rate has finally hit the double digits.

"The trend is not unexpected. The size of the increase is somewhat surprising," he said. "Clearly that will be a dampener for the next few months on any kind of turnaround."

Still, hope is where you make it.

Gary Weiner, president of Saxon Shoes, said he's hired nine people in the past three weeks for his store at the Short Pump Town Center and plans to hire more.

"We've got shoes, we've got staff to serve customers," he said. "We're committed."

Ann R. Stone, deputy director of the Capital Area Training Consortium, said she wishes more unemployed workers knew the range of resources available at the area's six Capital Workforce Centers.

Those resources include help with résumés as well as access to computers, copiers and e-mail to help people contact employers. The centers also help with everything from assessing skills and coping with stress to pitching in with moving expenses.

While the centers are extremely busy, Stone worries more people need its services -- and notes that some of those working with the centers are companies looking for good employees.

At the Neighborhood Resource Center in Richmond's Fulton Hill neighborhood, co-director Annette Cousins is planning to start offering regular hours for people to get help with résumés and computer skills, because so many people are coming in asking for help with their job hunts.

Fulton Hill resident Joyce Mitchell was already hard at work yesterday doing just that.

Laid off in February from a job driving a shuttle bus, she said she's not discouraged by the latest unemployment news.

"I'm not going to give up," she said. "Somebody is going to hire me."

Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or dress @timesdispatch.com.