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No Comments [ Add Comment ]Deteriorating job outlook
By CHARLES F. TRENTELMANOGDEN -- Tom Baguley, an auto mechanic, has spent the last three months visiting Northern Utah auto repair shops looking for work.
"I've been to most of the dealerships from Brigham City to Roy, and no one has any openings right now," the North Ogden man said.
Same thing goes for independent shops.
Baguley moved to Utah from California 21/2 years ago to take advantage, in part, of the booming economy. Houses in San Bernardino, like everywhere in California, were going for sky-high prices.
"My brother already lives here (in Utah)," he said. "We came here and found the homes to be a lot cheaper than California."
So they sold high, bought low, and Baguley took a job teaching auto mechanics at the Clearfield Job Corps.
That lasted until early last year, when the management of the auto mechanics class at the Job Corps changed. His job disappeared in the shift, and, at age 52 and with four children and a wife at home, he found himself on the job market.
But nobody is hiring car mechanics right now.
"I went to Westland Ford and talked to some of the mechanics, and one guy had one truck he was working on. I asked, 'Where's the rest of your cars?' and he said, 'I have this one truck.'
"They said, 'Yeah, we're just trying to get by.' So I think it's true for construction and the auto field. Everyone's just making ends meet."
Which leaves new job applicants like him out in the cold.
And yet, if you just count numbers, Utah seems to have lots of jobs.
If Baguley were to go to one of the computers at the Utah's Workforce Services offices, or look up http://jobs.utah.gov on the Internet, he would see more than 4,000 listings within a 100-mile radius of his home.
Do you qualify?
Problem is finding a job he can qualify for.
Last week, there were precisely five auto mechanic jobs in the entire state, none on the Wasatch Front. Two are in Price, with one each in Roosevelt, Vernal and St. George.
What sort of jobs are listed? Customer service representatives who speak Norwegian, Swedish or Chinese. Home loan consultants. A physician in Salt Lake City, a meat cutter in Provo and an air-traffic controller in Ogden.
There are numerous jobs for sheep herders, paying $750 a month, "maintenance associates" and "sandwich artists."
None of those fit Baguley. He, and many like him, are job hunting against several forces that are converging to make their task more difficult.
For one, there is the drastic slowdown in the economy. People, nervous about their money, are buying fewer cars, but also apparently putting off car repairs.
Shrinking revenues
The Legislature is dealing with a massive loss of sales tax revenues, which has government agencies freezing hiring and wages. Homes for sale are sitting empty, shops had their worst Christmas in decades.
It all adds up to a thousand tiny cuts that can slash an economy based on consumption.
Still, in normal times, Utah's 3.8 percent unemployment rate as of November would be considered "full employment." By national standards, it is amazingly low.
John Mathews, northern region economist for the Department of Workforce Services, said any unemployment below 4 percent usually represents "frictional" unemployment, the normal flow of people between jobs.
He thinks Utah's numbers represent more than that, however.
Research shows that the number of jobs in Utah is shrinking, down 11,000 in the last year. Some of those jobs are construction, and the workers could have left Utah to seek jobs elsewhere.
However, Mathews said Workforce Services data shows job loss in all sectors: construction, manufacturing and service.
"The only industries that seem to be somewhat recession-proof are health services and business services," he said.
That decline in available jobs, with the increase in people filing for unemployment, means unemployment is no longer "frictional," but now it's people like Baguley, unable to find that new job.
Mathews said things will worsen. The earliest he sees an upturn is 2010, he said.
"We don't seem to have identified anything that's going to pull us out of this," he said.
"I think everyone is kind of sitting tight, waiting for what's going to happen on the national side in the new administration."
But no matter what the Obama administration does, he said, other shoes are going to fall that Obama can't control.
Mortgage woes
"Particularly for mortgages, it is going to get worse," he said. "The subprimes have reset (switched from initial low teaser rates), but the Alt-A and ARMs are set to reset this year or in a year or two, and they are going to go deeper."
Alt-A and ARM mortgages are types of mortgages that, initially, have low payments but adjust later to higher rates. Like people who got subprime mortgages, he said, people holding such mortgages could see their monthly payments double.
That will deal another blow to an economy already struggling with consumers who have quit spending, he said, and make it harder for people like Baguley to find jobs.
Or, people like Paul LaPlant, 39.
LaPlant's last job was with the U.S. military in Iraq. A member of the U.S. Army Reserve, he was a medic serving with a route clearance team in places like Fallujah and Ramadi.
They were the guys who would go out looking for IEDs. LaPlant came home with a Purple Heart and some savings to find a very bleak job situation.
Federal law said reservists who are called up have to have their jobs held for them.
"What happened is, the electric sign company was going out of business, and I understand they couldn't keep me on," he said. "Plus I wanted away from that, anyway."
Problem is, that was in October 2007. It's good that he saved his combat pay, he said, because he's been living on that and unemployment insurance benefits ever since. The unemployment runs out in two weeks.
He said he worries that, in troubled times, potential employers don't want to take on someone who has to take time off for reservist duties.
"I had no problem with my jobs before," he said. "I get back and find most employers around here frown on you being in the Reserves."
He was even turned down for a job as a stocker at Hill Air Force Base.
"I got an e-mail saying I don't qualify for it, and I say, 'What the hell? These are veterans' jobs and I'm a veteran, a wounded vet, but they'll give some kid off the street a job.'
"I'm pretty well (angry) at the situation."
Hanging on
His military medic training isn't good enough for a job, he said. He's hoping to get into an emergency medical technician course in February. Until then, he'll just hang on.
Which, Baguley said, he's doing as well.
In a way, he's too specialized. There are mechanic jobs around, but they are not for cars, and that's what he knows, so he keeps looking.
"We've been blessed. We get by month to month," he said.
He gets unemployment benefits, his wife works as a cook in a local school, and he picks up the small side job from time to time.
"Just squeaking by," he said.
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