The woman is in her 20s, and she’s standing at the counter, torso pressed against its edge, body tense but voice calm. “The letters say I’m overqualified. What does that mean, overqualified? It’s a $9-an-hour job! Am I overqualified because I’m a regular American with bills to pay? What does that mean?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She keeps talking because a real person is standing in front of her. Not a computer screen. Not a telephone voice-mail system. Not some form letter with no return address telling her, a high school graduate, she’s overqualified for a job working a cash register.
Tina Kover, the business associate on the other side of the counter, listens. Her eyes never leave the woman’s face. She nods. She murmurs: “I know, I know. It’s frustrating.”
Kover is practiced at this. Frustration routinely walks through the door of the job center. People, 300 to 500 a day, come in to look for work or to find a better job or for training or guidance. They come because they must or because routine keeps panic away. They come to remind themselves they are not alone, though the truth is, this knowledge provides less comfort than it does a sort of camaraderie.
The young woman steps away from the counter. Adrienne Danielson, she says when I ask. Twenty-eight years old. Out of work for more than a year. Unemployment benefit of $584 every two weeks and due to run out in November.
“I hear people saying we’re not in a recession anymore, that it’s all done,” she says. “And I’m saying, ‘Really? Where? In Europe? Because I’m sure not seeing it.’ “
It’s been a year since I last visited Arapahoe/Douglas Works!, a state Department of Labor and Employment workforce center in Greenwood Village. The unemployment rate, nationally and locally, has only gone up, though it must be said, Colorado has remained in better shape than most states. It bears repeating, as well, that the unemployment rate doesn’t count everyone out of a job.
We sit at number 16 in the unemployment rate rankings by state, a little worse off than Maryland, a little better off than New Mexico. Good news, like bad, is relative, and so we, with our 7.3 percent unemployment rate in August, can give some thanks we are not Michigan with more than double that.
Ask at the center what has changed in a year and the first response is a deep breath. More people, many more skilled, educated workers with years on the job, manager Najwa Jad tells me. “We don’t get shocked anymore at who comes through the door,” she says. “I don’t think any of us could have imagined what has happened to the economy. Trust me, if we had, we would have moved into a bigger office.”
Between October 2008 and September 2009, the center saw about 16,000 more job seekers compared with the same time the previous year. Of the 63,000 people registered from October ’08 to September ’09, about 54,000 were without work. The number of employers listing jobs has dropped by 25 percent, though the actual number of job openings has dipped only slightly.
It’s taking longer, but an estimated 16,000 of this workforce center’s customers found a job over the past year.
“It’s the only thing that’s going to jumpstart this economy,” Jad says. “A paycheck is a ticket to freedom. We’re trying to make our customers more competitive. That’s always been our mission.”
I slip into Bob Mestas’ class. He’s demonstrating how to use social-networking sites for self-promotion.
“You have to establish a brand,” he says. “I know for us older folks it’s a little tougher to get used to this stuff, but employers are looking for people who understand this. It’s real time. It’s right now, and you are not going to get that on job boards.”
His audience is eight unemployed workers, six men, two women. Among them are a woman who worked 25 years in telecommunications; a senior systems engineer; a man with more than 10 years in information systems technology who has been job hunting for six months; and a man with 20 years in community systems programming, out of work now for one year.
“I lost my job in April,” one student, a 57-year-old systems administrator who worked at a major financial services company, tells me. “I worked there a total of 10 years. They just called me down to the office and then walked me to the door.”
We talk for a while. His skills are highly specialized, and some days, he’s frightened. “I’m having a little trouble redefining myself.”
I don’t hear these stories the same way I did a year ago. I know too many people now, former colleagues, friends, in the same boat as Jeff. This story has never been one only numbers can tell. The landscape continues to shift. A person loses a job, another finds one, and emanating all around us are ripples.
Tina Griego writes Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
