: Have you been watching the figures in layoffs? Already 100,000
: have lost their jobs... AND WE ARE STILL IN JANUARY!

Sunday July 29 11:00 AM ET

U.S. Job Seekers Finding Difficult Times

By Philip Andrew Klein

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kevin Harrington has recruited for a San Francisco placement agency for ten years, and he cannot remember the climate being worse for job seekers.

The agency has stopped interviewing for summer employment, because it already has books filled with names of applicants who cannot be placed. Harrington said that the job market, which has been slowing since December, has crumbled in just the last few weeks.

Although the U.S. unemployment rate was still a relatively low 4.5 percent in June, recent events suggest that the worst is yet to come.

This week, high-profile companies Lucent Technologies Inc. , Hewlett-Packard Co. and JDS Uniphase Corp. announced job cuts that could total 33,000.

Announced layoffs at U.S. companies this year, tracked by International Strategy and Investment, have soared to more than 1.1 million as of last week. This number is more than double the number of announced layoffs for all of last year.

And while the number of announcements dipped in May, it has surged again in June and July. Many of these job cuts may not take place until the second half of the year and therefore are not yet reflected in government figures.

Resilient sales of autos, homes and retail goods have been the key element keeping the economy out of a recession this year. But if jobs continue to evaporate this summer, consumers may start to
close their wallets.

Those at the front lines, such as staffing agencies and career counselors, say that the job market is dramatically worse than last year and it is not improving, though it is still not nearly as bad as it was during the 1991 recession.

``Over the past month, we've had 20 percent more people come through our door looking for jobs,'' said Cori McHugh, who manages Hobbie Personnel Service in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where
Corning Inc. this month closed a plant, shedding 600 workers.

``Twenty people will come for a receptionist job and we have one or two job orders,'' McHugh said.

Resume.com may be one of the few online business that is growing. The New York-based company, which provides career coaching and resume writing, said its revenues nearly tripled since last year and have risen 32 percent since Jan. 1, due in large part to the slumping job market.

``We're seeing a lot of people who are agitated and frustrated who want to seek professional help,'' said Gershon Berswerk, the company's chief operating officer.

Gershon also said that the company serves some people who are currently employed, but are passively seeking new jobs because they are afraid of being let go.

Staffing agencies say that last year they couldn't find enough people to fill their existing job orders, but now the opposite is true. Applicants then could be placed within the same day, but now it takes the agencies weeks if they can find anything at all.

As a result, many job seekers are beginning to lower their job expectations and accept positions that they would shun just a few months ago. Desperate applicants are also calling to follow up more frequently than in the past, staffers say.

The job market varies according to region, industry and skill level. As the headlines suggest, the telecommunications, technology and manufacturing sectors have been hit hard as have the regions that depend on them, but the health care market remains strong.

``The bottom line is that the strength is at the top,'' said William Katter, the Northeast Director for Manpower Professional, a unit of Manpower Inc.. He said that advanced computer programming skills are still in high demand, but there is lower demand for technicians who handle installations and upgrades.

The unemployment rate grew to 4.5 percent in June from a low of 3.9 percent last October. But it is still far below the 7.8 percent peak it reached in 1992, after the last recession.

``It clearly is not to the levels of the early 90s,'' said Edward Fleischman, President of The Execu/Search Group placement firm in New York. ``It's not even close.''

But this offers little comfort to the average job seeker.

``One year ago, chances were excellent that if you came in the door looking for work, you would find it,'' said Lori Blandford, who manages Atrium Staffing in New York. ``Now, your chances are
not too good.''

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