Unemployed Residents Struggle In Stagnant Job Market
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – Like 14 million other Americans, the Barrons are searching for a job in a market that stopped adding them last month.
They stood in front of a bulletin board outside of the North Fort Worth Workforce Center on Friday looking at hiring listings. Many are for jobs like janitors or restaurant help.
Maria Barron is unemployed. And when she can find work – like a job she found packaging and boxing cell phones near Alliance Airport – employers "would call her to go and then she goes for three hours and then (they) send her home," Maria's husband Daniel Barron said.
"I mean, c'mon! You can't waste gas going all the way up there for three hours. And the next day they say don't go. Then they call her again and they work two hours and send her home."
And Daniel has had his hours cut back, slashing his salary by almost two-thirds.
With three children, the Barrons face around $2,400 worth of bills a month. Daniel's salary amounts to about $2,200.
And even Maria's job leads bring no certainty.
"Right now, she just came off of one that only lasted a week," Daniel Barron said. "Then they let her go. They gave her another one, another job, we don't know if its going to last a week, you know?"
The economy needs to add roughly 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, which has been above 9 percent in all but two months since May 2009.
In August, the private sector added 17,000 jobs, the fewest since February 2010. That compares with 156,000 in July and 75,000 in June.
Hiring fell across many different sectors. Manufacturers cut 3,000 jobs, its first decline since October 2010. Construction companies, retailers, and transportation firms also cut workers.
The health care industry added 30,000 jobs last month.
The economy expanded at an annual pace of only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year. That was the slowest six months of growth since the recession officially ended in June 2009.
Agustine Castro is an unemployed electrician who can't afford to renew his expired electricians license.
"Its just $20, but then again, when you don't have it, its like a thousand," Castro said.
Castro and others just like him fill workforce centers looking for job leads. Many are guided by counselors as they navigate computers trying to find something – anything – that might give them hope of finding long-term employment.
"Our numbers unfortunately have stayed really, really steady," said Patricia Johnson who runs the Northside Workforce Center on Main Street in north Fort Worth. "We have people we've been working with for over a year because their field just isn't hiring."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
