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More workers fall back on part-time 'survival' jobs

By Dee DePass, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Source: MCT News Service

MINNEAPOLIS _ Debb Carlson may be the new face of the American worker.

After a layoff, the former special-education teacher's aide is stitching together a living from four part-time jobs. They don't pay all the bills, but they help her survive.

"I have been doing this since late September and I have still not found a full-time job. It's terrifying. I am in the fourth month of arrears on my home," said Carlson, 59.

So she works in a day care center, then as a fitness instructor and a personal trainer, plus she's a personal-care attendant for a health care facility. She's hoping to get more hours, maybe cleaning toilets or prepping food for the elderly.

Carlson's far from alone, say employment counselors and state officials. While the nation's unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, the Labor Department reports that the actual number of people out of work climbs if you factor in laid-off workers who are forced into part-time jobs or who've given up looking altogether. In May that number reached for 16.4 percent.

So it's survival time for Carlson and thousands of other laid-off workers who now find themselves leaping at part-time or low-wage "survival" jobs outside their profession to make ends meet as the recession drags on.

Former printers, teachers, real estate agents and IT workers around the state say they now pay the bills by working as substitute teachers, fitness instructors, bartenders, grocery clerks, coffee baristas, hoagie and burger makers and anything else that brings in a steady check. It's not their chosen profession, but the jobs offer an economic lifeline that few are willing to shun.

The U.S. Labor Department found 9.1 million of these "involuntary part-time" workers in May.

"Taking part-time jobs when you can't find something else is not a new phenomenon, it's just more prevalent now because of the high unemployment rate," said Ken Root, co-author of the book "Forced Out: Older Workers Confront Job Loss." He added, "so far the stimulus money has not translated into a lot of new jobs."

Displaced workers fitting Carlson's demographic_older than 45 _ are more likely to have to stitch together income by working multiple or highly undesired jobs, Root said, because they are having difficulty getting good jobs that pay health care and an adequate wage. "That is a condition that exists in academia," he said, "where people who can't get regular jobs work two or three adjunct jobs and use their car as their office, so to speak."

When so few are hiring, you plan for the best, but sometimes are forced to cling to whatever survival job you can get, said Heidi Stardig Stay, a case manager for the Minnesota Workforce Center in Minneapolis. She sees lots of clients in that situation. "Sometimes you have to create a career out of many different jobs to make it work," she said, adding that she speaks from experience.

Stardig Stay was laid off from a full-time job seven years ago in Oregon. "At one point I had three part-time jobs." Now she's advising clients how to do the same if they don't find doors opening in their chosen profession, despite relentless networking, retraining and resume submissions.

But, it's not easy, said Carlson, who teaches five exercise classes a week at LA Fitness in St. Paul for about $17 an hour, while also working in its day-care room for $8 an hour a few times a week. She does personal training on the side and for another 16 hours a week works for an agency as a personal care attendant, tending to a client with Down syndrome.

The four jobs bring in $750 a month. Her mortgage is $1,000.

So, she's also searching for additional personal training clients, but they are harder to find when many people are cutting back. "In this economy it's not about being creative or redefining myself. I need work, now. End of story," she told a job coach recently. Carlson doesn't see any of her jobs blossoming into a full-time gig anytime soon.

"We see a lot of that and it's really, really sad," said Lori Lamb, branch manager at staffing firm ResourceMfg in Burnsville, Minn. "I have this gentleman who I interviewed ... he was a warehouse supervisor and he wants to work," so he's taking a "general labor position" that is part time, Lamb said. He has had "supervisory warehouse positions at Best Buy and UPS. But he said he's had to take his supervisory positions off his resume because that has prevented him from getting hired in the past."

Vietnam veteran Rick Pirtle, 59, worked as a pressman at River Point Media for 31 years until he was laid off in December. Now his only income is his unemployment check and the 28 hours a week he works for Cub Foods.

He used to make $18.75 an hour and has had to make a major adjustment. Cub Foods just increased his pay as a cashier from $7.50 to $9.50 an hour. "I get by very carefully," said the Minneapolis resident. "My wife doesn't make a lot of money either. She's in food service, lost her job and now works part time at a restaurant in the Mall of America."

It's a job she found after her 20-year waitressing career ended when Bakers Square in Minneapolis closed last year. Now she's chopping onions, peppers and meat as a food prep staffer at Johnny Rockets.

"This is the most menial job I have ever had and I feel not always respected," said Pam Pirtle. "But it's a job. I'm not complaining. I'm just telling you it's been tough. At Bakers Square, I always felt like I was somebody."

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(c) 2009, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

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