The hard reality of long-term unemployment

By Flickr user Bernard Pollack

A few months here ago in Michigan, experts at an economic summit concluded that the state may not recoup recession-lost jobs for some 20 years.

That news actually came as something of a relief to local analysts, who feared that several generations would pass before the state’s job market rebounded to levels it enjoyed before the nation’s economic crisis and the auto industry meltdown.

The hard fact is that millions of workers nationwide will be hard pressed to find employment with wages and security even approaching what they enjoyed before the recession evaporated some 7 million positions.  As this CNN Money piece points out, even without another recession in the next decade (which is an optimistic scenario) it will take longer than that for the economy to generate new jobs and plenty of them.

Meanwhile, Congress may vote as early as today on yet another federal extension of unemployment benefits for more than 1 million people whose insurance expired on Sunday.

That makes a bleak outlook for many long-term unemployed, and a compelling business feature you may want to develop.  There are several possible approaches.  You could shoot for a one-time package like this compelling New York Times piece,  which blends human-interest stories with data and expert analysis.  The structure of the article sets a high bar but one you could localize with great success.  Note the nitty-gritty detail about wages, spending and savings erosion as well as specifics about the subjects bruised egos and fears of redundancy.

Blend local tales with data due out this week, as I detailed in this previous post, and you’ve got a fine narrative that also offers a snapshot of the local economy.

How do you find willing subjects?  I’d look for a cross-section of workers, through white-collar headhunters and recruiting firms to state workforce commission retraining programs, job fairs, the waiting rooms of temporary staffing firms and other employment-related venues. But I’d also try creative avenues: Comb the classified for ‘motivated sellers’ of expensive depreciating assets like boats, RVs, autos, vacation homes.  Talk to people in bankruptcy court and at check-cashing stores or pawn shops.

Just one caveat:  Ask for documentation; this will aid your reporting and your story’s credibility.  If someone says they were laid off, check out the termination paperwork.  If they say they used to make $75,000 a year and now are working for $7.50 an hour, require them to provide tax returns and pay stubs to prove it.  Same with any other financial claims — like eroded 401(k)s, medical bills, etc.  Sounds cynical but it’s better than producing a project that turns out to be riddled with exaggeration and self-serving woe.  There are enough true,  telling tales out there that you can afford to be rigorous in demanding proof.

Don’t overlook the effect on the larger community while you’re relating the househ0ld-level tales.  From vacant houses to increased demand for social services, long-term unemployment erodes neighborhood prosperity as much as individuals.

On Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release the February employment situation report,  which aside from the overarching national unemployment rate will give us ancillary tables concerning workers who consider themselves underemployed and those who, discouraged, have dropped out of contention even though they’d like to be working.  Be sure to take note of Table A-12 and Table A-16 to get a picture of the duration of unemployment and those who are discouraged, marginally attached to the workforce or holding multiple jobs to make ends meet.

While the BEA doesn’t offer these stats at the regional or metro level, the tables will give you an idea of what to ask local officials, such as your state’s workforce authority.

Another approach to the long-term unemployment story would be a longitudinal package that follows displaced workers for the remainder of the year.  (This has many multi-media possibilities, too, such a blog or Twitter feed that would allow your subjects to connect frequently with readers.)

Take a handful of workers and their families and chronicle their job-search plight in coming months, along with their presumably deepening financial woes and the very real identity crisis they likely suffer.  Set a schedule for updates – weekly or more often, to keep your audience coming back – and follow the subjects as they grapple with job-hunting, re-training, perhaps a retrenching of their lifestyle and future expectations.  Well told, this may be one of the most pertinent stories of the nation’s economic crisis.