Unemployment pain felt locally

More area residents have joined the ranks of the unemployed as the nation lost another half-million jobs in November and America's unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent.
"We have seen a progressive increase in the number that have been filing for unemployment," said Craig Baker, chief operating officer for the Greater New Bedford Workforce Investment Board.
In one week in November, 414 people visited the Greater New Bedford Career Center to file for unemployment. The center has been averaging 350 people a week, most of them new claimants, up from an average of 200 in the summer, Mr. Baker said.
Due to high demand, Mr. Baker said wait times are up at the career center, and he encouraged people to be patient with the process.
Nationally, 533,000 jobs disappeared in November. The unemployment rate rose from 6.5 percent in October to 6.7 percent. Since the country entered a recession a year ago, the number of unemployed individuals shot up by 2.7 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 1.7 percentage points, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Dr. Jon Bryan, a professor at Bridgewater State College's Department of Management, said the new numbers were worse than most economists had anticipated.
"It does signify the depth and extent of the downturn which we're in at the moment," Dr. Bryan said.
The unemployment numbers alone do not show the full picture of how many people are out of work across the country.
There were another 608,000 people in November who currently have given up looking for work because they believe no jobs are available, up from 259,000 a year earlier, according to household survey data from the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate in New Bedford was 8.9 percent in October, up from 6.2 percent in the same month last year, according to the most recent city-specific data provided by the state.
The state's call center for unemployment services is also experiencing increased demand, and the state beefed up staffing for incoming calls by transferring 38 employees to the center from other positions and hiring an additional 22 employees, said Edward Malmborg, director of the state Division of Unemployment Assistance.
"We're attempting to simply improve the level of the service," Mr. Malmborg said.
Dr. Bryan warned the nation could be facing a long stretch of economic doldrums. Many economists are now forecasting the downturn could linger into 2010, he said.
The country is entering uncharted water because it has more personal and corporate debt than ever before. This could exacerbate the economic downturn as people try to pay off the debt, he said.
"We enter a recession in a vulnerable economic position because of our debt loads," he said.
Adding another twist, the nation arrived at a recession with low interest rates. The Federal Reserve has limited ability to stimulate the economy through rate cuts because rates are already low to begin with, he said.
The mounting bad news comes in the middle of the holiday shopping season and will only add more doubt in the minds of consumers.
In the past, people could charge their holiday costs and expect to pay it off in January. Now, people are not certain whether they will have a job in January, said Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, director of the UMass Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research.
"Any of that (bad news) is going to dampen consumer confidence, and if consumer confidence is down, spending will be down," Dr. Barnes said. "Christmas will look different."
While consumers are taking a wait-and-see approach, they aren't hopeless, she said.
"I don't think they have given up," she said. "I think they are waiting for it to pass."
Contact Brian Boyd at bboyd@s-t.com

By Brian Boyd
Standard-Times staff writer
December 06, 2008 6:00 AM