Rochester Democrat, May 17, 2009, Sunday

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Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (New York)

May 17, 2009, Sunday

HEADLINE: Uneven pain

BYLINE: Jim Stinson

BODY:
Kevin Hoock was the longest tenured employee at the Tyco Electronics Corp. plant in Brighton when he was laid off last September. The manufacturing supervisor had worked at the plant for 28 years.

He received a severance package and left with his 401(k) retirement savings. But eight months later, Hoock, 53, still hasn't found another job.

He and his wife don't want to leave the region. "My roots are here, my parents are here," said the Henrietta resident. More than that, the Hoocks lost their 17-year-old son, Trevor, to an illness in 2003 and regularly visit his grave.

People like Hoock - a white man in the 45-to-54 age category - haven't experienced joblessness in the numbers they are now since the federal government began tracking employment by demographic groups in the early 1950s. Almost 8 percent of men in that group are unemployed.

Nationwide numbers show that the current recession, which originated in the white-collar canyons of Wall Street, is affecting experienced workers to an unprecedented extent, but young African-American and Hispanic workers have been hardest hit. The figures also show that education counts more than ever and that unemployment has been signifi-cantly less widespread for women than for men.

The jobless rate for black men reached a Depression-like 26 percent in the first quarter for those between ages 20 and 24, and 20 percent for those between 25 and 34. For Hispanic men, the corresponding rates were 16 percent and 13 percent. Generally, those levels were the highest since the deep recession of the early 1980s.

Employment experts see joblessness continuing to rise during the rest of this year and probably into 2010 as well, even as the economy starts to recover in other ways. Current overall rates are 8.9 percent for the United States and 8.3 percent in the Rochester area.

People who didn't finish high school are disproportionately affected by layoffs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which says even low-paying job openings are disappearing. Unemployment was 16 percent in the first quarter for men without a diploma and 14 percent for women.

To make things more difficult, those workers face growing competition from low-paid workers in Asia who can handle jobs in fields such as customer service, said Gary Keith, senior economist for M&T Bank.

Better for women

As educational attainment rises for both men and women of all races, unemployment eases. The rate for men with a bachelor's degree is 4.5 percent - comparatively low but still the highest for that demographic group in 17 years. Women with at least a bachelor's have one of the lowest jobless rates of any group, 3.8 percent.

The employment trend in favor of women is a dramatic change from the past and partly reflects the continuing de-cline of manufacturing.

While men typically see their unemployment rates jump during a recession, Francine Blau, a Cornell University professor of labor economics and labor-industrial relations, said this recession has attacked men in particular.

"Men are more likely to be in cyclical sectors," said Blau, referring to manufacturing and heavy industrial work. Women are more likely to be concentrated in education and health care, which need workers no matter how the economy is doing and which have become the largest sources of jobs in many areas, including Rochester.

Unemployment tends to lessen with age as well as with education. Women and men in their 40s and 50s are more likely to hang on to their jobs than those in their 20s and 30s, who often are the last hired and first fired when business conditions worsen.

During this recession, though, the jobless numbers are relatively high for more experienced workers.

Racial disparities

What hasn't changed is that disparities based on factors such as race are still evident. So while white men ages 45 to 54 are seeing a record high unemployment rate of 8 percent, the rate for African-American men in that age range is 13 percent, which isn't a record.

The solutions to these disparities are long-term, not short-term, and will involve funding for more education and job training, said Zachary Karabell, president of River Twice Research in New York City.

Even the $787 billion federal stimulus spending is a short-term fix that will not repair some of the nation's struc-tural problems, which have caused higher unemployment for black and Hispanic workers, Karabell said.

Blau said many African-American and Hispanic workers are concentrated in heavy industrial and cyclical sectors and are especially hard hit during a recession. She also noted the exodus of jobs to the suburbs, farther away from city neighborhoods and public transportation routes.

"There aren't a lot of opportunities," said Hilda Rosario Escher, president of the Ibero-American Action League in Rochester. She said that many Hispanic workers will eagerly accept work, but the recession has diminished opportuni-ties across the board, even lower-paying positions in restaurants and retail stores.

Awaiting recovery

The recession has left many laid-off workers with solid résumés scratching their heads and hoping for a turnaround. Kevin Hoock is among them.

At Tyco and the plant's previous owner, Eastman Kodak Co., Hoock managed as many as 160 people at the peak of business, when the plant was shipping 1 million circuit boards a week. Even toward the end, he oversaw 75 employees.

But changing business conditions and then the recession caused the volume of work to decrease, and finally the op-eration was relocated overseas.

The fact that Hoock is still looking for a job shows the depth of the recession. He has an associate's degree in busi-ness and in 2004 was certified as a forklift trainer - plus he has those 28 years of supervisory and manufacturing ex-perience.

He has derived satisfaction from helping to find employment for at least 12 of his former Tyco colleagues.

When it will be his turn, he doesn't know.
JFSTINSO@DemocratandChronicle.com

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