MOUNT VERNON — On paper, it looks great. For four months, the Knox County unemployment rate has been slipping down, according to figures supplied by the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services. It looks at first glance as if unemployed people are steadily finding jobs.
But where are those jobs?
Despite some modest seasonal hiring by retailers, the overwhelming impression lately is that central Ohio’s job bleed has been continuing, seeping away the economic health of the region as the closing or down-sizing of manufacturing jobs leads to the closing of retail operations. Is the security net of unemployment benefits actually catching the people it is meant to serve?
Tanya Renee Barton is a Mount Vernon resident who has gotten caught in the no man’s land between systems. Previously a resident of Newport, Mich., Barton’s main job was as a medical assistant in a podiatrist’s office. Even then, she often worked cleaning jobs as an additional source of income.
When her parents moved from Michigan to Mount Vernon, Barton tried to make it on her own in Michigan, where the current job situation is dire. But stuck with odd and inconsistent hours on the first job, she was unable to secure enough additional jobs to get by. So after a couple of months of struggling to make ends meet, Barton saw she wasn’t going to be able to afford the cost of living in southeast Michigan.
“I had a tough choice to make: Have a job and be homeless or have shelter and find a job quick,” Barton said.
Opting for the latter, she moved to join her mother and stepfather in Ohio, where they had landed jobs. Before Barton moved, she started looking for work, but didn’t find any. So she planned to hit the ground running as soon as she got to town.
That was Aug. 30, roughly the same point Knox County’s unemployment numbers started declining. Did she find an eager job market?
Hardly, she said. Barton signed up with Opportunity Knox and has been using its resume guidelines and copying service ever since, as well as haunting job bulletin boards and want ads for the whole region, from Newark to Mansfield. She additionally signed up with temporary employment agencies in hopes of getting a temp job which might lead to a full-time position. But in all that time, she’s found few jobs she was qualified for, and even fewer which have responded to the over 50 applications she said she has put in to various establishments.
Then she found out that her Michigan unemployment insurance was denied because she “willingly” quit her job at the podiatrist’s office. Barton has contested the denial, explaining her circumstances, but has yet to hear a final ruling. Meanwhile, new to the area, she has few contacts and has had to rely on her family for support.
To date, Barton has applied for work in hospitals, factories, retail and fast food, but has had no success, fearing that perhaps prospective employers for lower-paying jobs are put off by the hourly rate she previously made in Michigan. But, she said, she is resigned to the fact that she’ll have to work at least two jobs to get back on her own two feet.
Anticipating the worsening national job situation over the summer, the U.S. Congress voted to extend federal unemployment benefits for up to 33 weeks in some scenarios, but those extensions don’t kick in until Dec. 22. In addition, benefits will only be extended to those who were previously covered and who have exhausted all other potential sources of unemployment compensation, including state. No state extensions have been announced. Interest in these extensions is intense, as the ODJ&FS reports it received a record number of calls in November, over four times the rate for the same month in 2007.
“So what is a single, 32-year-old female to do with no job, money or unemployment help?” Barton asked.
She said her family has seen her through the tough times, but she wants to be able to support herself.
“I’d take anything I could get,” Barton said.
She is fully aware that a minimum-wage job won’t even cover half her bills, but she would welcome it as a start.
“I’m willing to work, if people will just give me a chance,” she said.
