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photo: SCOTT POLLACK (ILLUSTRATION)
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Job Market of the Future?
By IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN Richard Crane began to understand the new realities of the job market when he was laid off from a New Jersey battery plant in the summer of 2006.
He had been earning more than $100,000 a year operating heavy machinery for Delco, a former unit of General Motors. He worked there for 23 years, since graduating from high school. But when he lost his job, he was thrust into a netherworld of part-time gigs: working the registers at Taco Bell, organizing orders at McDonald’s, whatever he could find. “I thought it would be temporary,” says Mr. Crane, 49 years old. Three years later, he is selling outdoor furniture by day and pumping gas by night. He makes about a third of his former pay. Mr. Crane is among the growing ranks of the “underemployed”—people in part-time jobs who want full-time work, or people in jobs that don’t employ their skills. Since the recession began two years ago, the number of people involuntarily working part-time jobs has more than doubled to 9.3 million, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest number on record. NEW WORK ORDER The rise of the underemployed could represent a major change in the U.S. labor market. Many people who had comfortable full-time jobs with benefits and advancement opportunities now are cobbling together smaller jobs often at lower pay, a shift that economists say could become permanent for many individuals stuck in the cycle. The trend also puts more senior workers in competition for jobs traditionally held by teenagers and other young, less-experienced workers. “Underemployment means that many more people who can’t spend as much as they otherwise would,” says Robert Reich, a former State labor officials and economists generally label the underemployed as those who are working part-time when they would prefer full-time work, as well as people who are working beneath their skill level. Federal figures on the underemployed, however, don’t count that second group—those who are overqualified for their jobs. Even without that category, the key federal measure of underemployment is at 17.5%. “The number would be much higher if we included the mechanical engineers working at 7-Eleven,” says Heidi Shierholz, who studies underemployment at the Economic Policy Institute. ‘THAT’S ALL I DO’ After being laid off by the New Jersey battery plant in 2006, Mr. Crane took a job stocking shelves at Costco. His pay was $10.76 an hour—the same rate he earned when he was hired by Delco in 1983, just out of high school. “It’s sad,” says Mr. Crane, who had been earning about $28 per hour at Delco, before overtime. In late 2007, he took a job at Lowe’s while working at a series of fast-food jobs on the side, as well as a stint at a supermarket. He still works at Lowe’s, earning $15.96 an hour selling lawnmowers and outdoor furniture. At night, he pumps gas at a Quick Chek for $13.70 an hour. Typically, he works between 61 and 63 hours per week. With the gap between jobs, he can only sleep a few hours a night now—sometimes just an hour. “That’s all I do—every day—I just keep working,” he says. “I’ve got to. I’m not going to lose everything I have.” Mr. Crane has applied for hundreds of jobs, among them sanitation worker, bridge painter, tree cutter and transit worker. There were some factory openings, he says, but they pay less than Lowe’s. His wife, who had been a stay-at-home-mother, now earns about $20,000 a year working at a nursing home. Eventually, employment will pick up. But for people like Mr. Crane, the current situation could become permanent. As they work multiple jobs, they have less time to find full-time work. Their résumés, meanwhile, become spotty. “If you have a string of jobs beneath your skills, it erodes your resume and marketability,” says Ms. Shierholz. Mr. Crane no longer sees his new life as temporary. “My new goal is to become a manager at Lowe’s,” he says. “That will pay $17 an hour. I’m hoping this happens in the next couple of years, by the time my son is in high school.”
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