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CAPITOL
Jobless workers overwhelm agencies
Phone lines, computer systems tank
BY RICHARD RICHTMYER The Associated Press

    Electronic unemployment fi ling systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid an unprecedented crush of thousands of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits, and other states were adjusting their systems to avoid being next.
    About 4.5 million Americans are collecting jobless benefits, a 26-year high, so the Web sites and phone systems now commonly used to file for benefits are being tested like never before.
    Even those that are holding up under the strain are in many cases leaving filers on the line for hours, or kissing them off with an “all circuits are busy” message. Agencies have been scrambling to hire hundreds more workers to handle the calls.
    Systems in New York, North Carolina and Ohio were shut down completely by technical glitches and heavy volume, and labor offi - cials in several other states are reporting higher-than-normal use.
    “Regardless of when you call, be prepared to wait and just hang on. Try not to get frustrated,” said Howard Cosgrove, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which boosted its staff of telephone operators by 25 percent last month to cope with a phone system that has been overloaded for weeks. “We sympathize, we’re on their side, we’re doing our best to help them out.”
    The nation’s unemployment rate in November zoomed to 6.7 percent, a 15-year high. Economists predict it will rise to 7 percent in December, with another 500,000 jobs probably cut last month. The government releases its monthly employment report on Friday.
    Some states attribute the increase in call volume in part to an extension of federal emergency unemployment compensation from 13 weeks to 20 weeks in late November. More than 54,000 Pennsylvanians had exhausted their federal benefits after 13 weeks by the time that occurred, said David Smith, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
    “It really was a perfect storm,” he said.
SOFTWARE GLITCH
    New York’s phone and Internet claims system started to buckle on Monday afternoon and was out of service completely for the first half of Tuesday while as many as 10,000 people per hour tried to get in, said Leo Rosales, a state Labor Department spokesman.
    Although that was an unusually high number of calls, Rosales said it was a software glitch in an authentication system used to verify filers’ identities that caused the system to crash
    “It’s designed to handle this volume of calls, but the authentication process didn’t work as it should have,” he said. Rosales said the glitch that caused the shutdown has been fixed, and the agency doesn’t expect any more problems.
    About 256,000 people are collecting unemployment in New York, up from about 184,000 at this time last year.
    North Carolina’s Web site crashed twice this week under a rush of claims as that state set oneday records for both the amount of benefits paid and the number of transactions.
    On Sunday and Monday, the number of North Carolinians trying to sign up online for new or continuing benefits was about triple what it was before the economic slowdown started, according to the state Employment Security Commission. That volume, together with a phone line problem, overwhelmed the agency’s computers and prevented some people from filing claims.
    The system was working again by Monday afternoon after the agency added another server and demand decreased, officials said.
    “Right now, everything is back to normal,” agency spokesman Larry Parker said.
    Ohio’s unemployment hot line also is being crushed by callers, leaving thousands unable to get through Tuesday and no alternative because the Web site for fi ling claims also is down, according to Brian Harter, a spokesman for the state Department of Job and Family Services. Harter said the hot line generally receives about 7,500 calls a day, but has been getting about 80,000 a day this week.
    Callers to Michigan’s main phone line handling applications for jobless benefits got an “all circuits are busy now” message Tuesday afternoon. Officials in Michigan, which had the nation’s highest jobless rate at 9.6 percent in November, recently began urging applicants to seek benefits through a state Internet site instead. Michigan counted about 473,000 people as unemployed in November, up from about 370,000 a year ago.
    California has seen a record number of calls to an 800 number over the last few weeks. “During this holiday period we’ve been averaging a record of more than 2 million call attempts a day, and it took more than 20 times before people could get through to our UI call centers,” said Employment Development Department spokeswoman Patti Roberts.
MORE STAFF
    Several states have added staff to their call centers to handle the surge, including Oklahoma and Washington.
    Pennsylvania has hired temporary workers and expanded the hours of its unemployment benefi ts hot line to accommodate a surge in the number of calls, going from 600 employees to more than 800. Officials hope to eventually have 1,100 workers answering calls.
    New Mexico has extended callcenter hours, upgraded the phone system and added 15 workers. Even so, “We still are receiving reports of people’s inability to get through,” said Carrie Moritomo, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Workforce Solutions.
    Massachusetts officials say they have avoided any technical glitches — but they’re straining their system. Right now there are about 200,000 people collecting checks from week to week, up from 107,000 during the same period last year.
    “We have reached capacity in our system but we have not crashed,” said Michael Taylor, director of workforce development.
    In Kentucky, where....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01400

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The economic MELTDOWN
2.4 million jobs likely lost in U.S. in 2008
Prospects for current year not much better
BY JEANNINE AVERSA The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Americans probably suffered a net loss of 2.4 million jobs last year, with the pain likely to stretch well into 2009 and possibly beyond, underscoring the recession’s toll on employers and workers and the difficulty President-elect Barack Obama will face in reviving the economy.
    Already the New Year has gotten off to a rough start, and more bad news is expected this week when the government releases data on weekly jobless claims and December unemployment.
    Just days into 2009, data storage company EMC Corp., managed care provider Cigna Corp., aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. and computer products designer Logitech International were among those announcing big layoffs as companies scramble to cut costs even deeper. The flurry of layoffs suggest the employment picture will remain grim this year.
    “Many companies have a bare-bones mentality. With labor being their biggest expense, you will see them continue to drop the ax on jobs,” said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. “There is absolutely no reason to believe the economy is going to be creating jobs any time soon. There are just no reasons for companies to flick on the hiring switch.”
    A barometer on layoffs due out today is expected to show that the number of newly laid off people signing up for state unemployment insurance last week rose to 540,000, up from 492,000 in the previous week, according to economists’ projections.
    The number of people continuing to draw jobless benefits is projected to stay near 4.5 million, demonstrating the troubles the unemployed are having in finding new jobs.
    Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid a crush of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits.
    On Wall Street, investors worried about the jobs outlook contributed to a sharp decline in stocks. The Dow Jones industrials lost more than 245 points to 8,769.70 Wednesday.
    For all of 2008, employers likely slashed payrolls by at least 2.4 million. That’s based on economists’ forecasts for a net loss of 500,000 additional jobs in December, as well as the job losses already reported every month last year by the government. Some, however, think the number of jobs cut last month will be higher — around 600,000 or 700,000. The Labor Department will release that report Friday.
    “We await Friday with trepidation,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
JOB LOSSES
    If the conservative, 2.4 million estimate of payroll reductions for 2008 proves correct, it would mark the first annual job loss since the previous recession in 2001. It also would be the worst year of job losses since 1945, when employers slashed nearly 2.8 million jobs. Though the number of jobs in the United States has more than tripled since then, job losses of that magnitude would be sober testimony to the nation’s economic woes.
    With employers throttling back hiring, the unemployment rate is expected to jump from 6.7 percent in November to 7 percent in December, which would be the highest in 15 1 /2 years. That figure also will be released Friday.
    Vanishing jobs, tanking home values and shriveled investments have forced consumers to cut back sharply on their spending. In turn, businesses have retrenched as well.
    Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday said the best option for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been under government control since September, could be to run the mortgage giants like public utilities. The new companies would be privately owned, but purchase and securitize mortgages with a credit guarantee backed by the federal government and governed by a rate-setting commission that would establish a targeted rate of return. Still, Congress and the Obama administration must decide the proper role government should play in supporting home ownership, he said.
    Consumers and companies are folding under the negative forces of the.....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00400

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Many workers face dilemma: Accept a pay cut or lose job
BY PETER WHORISKEY The Washington Post

    WASHINGTON — Every weekday, Tom Sorrell rattles around Northern Virginia in a noisy tractor-trailer, struggling through tight turns and traffic, picking up and dropping off cartons and pallets of just about anything until there’s no more to be done. For this, the 16-year veteran driver makes $22.71 an hour.
    Thursday, his pay dropped 10 percent.
    In what some say is a forerunner of the concessions U.S. workers will be asked to make during the recession, the 40,000 members of Sorrell’s union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, voted to approve a wage cut to keep afl oat their employer, YRC Worldwide, a Fortune 500 trucking company.
    Truckers around the country viewed the vote as a choice between a pay cut or no job at all.
    “It’s going to be a hardship,” said Sorrell, 46, of Manassas, Va., adding that he had already cut down on his groceries and driving to save money. “The shame of it is the employees didn’t get the company in this situation. If we’re all in the same boat and we’re sinking, why didn’t management take the same cut we are?”
    The chief executive of Kansasbased YRC Worldwide, William Zollars, made $5.7 million in 2007, according to the company’s regulatory filings.
    He agreed to a 10 percent pay cut for the next six months and a 5 percent pay cut for the following six months. He also will not get bonuses. Although the truckers’ pay cut remains in effect longer — through 2013 — Zollars noted that his pension has been cut by 30 percent.
    “The pain has to be shared equally,” he said. “The [company’s] prospects for success are very high now that we’ve gotten this done.”
    As the downturn wears on, more workers, unionized or not, will probably face requests to trim their pay or benefits to keep their employers viable, economists say.
    The United Auto Workers is being pushed to take wage and benefit cuts for General Motors and Chrysler to get a $17.4 billion federal loan. And labor leaders expect recessionary trouble to play a role in collective-bargaining agreements expected to begin this year at United, Southwest and Continental airlines as well as AT&T and Kroger.
    This month, Gary Beevers, international vice president of the United Steelworkers, will represent 30,000 workers in contract negotiations with the oil companies.
    “We’ll find out at the bargaining table just how bad the oil companies think they’re doing,” he said. “There’s no doubt they made good money over the last few years. But there’s also no doubt that their margins have been bad since the recession hit.”
    Harley Shaiken, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues, said there would be “fierce pressures for unions to give back in the coming year . . . Right now, unions are willing to do painful things to make sure the companies are successful.”
    The fortunes for YRC Worldwide, which includes Yellow, Roadway and USF Holland, began to unravel about 18 months ago, when the stock price began a slide from $37 to about $4. Its descent accelerated in September during some of the country’s worst economic turmoil.
    The amount of regional freight it carries per day has plummeted 20 percent over the past year. Moody’s, the rating service, downgraded its credit.
    Some analysts attributed the troubles to management’s decisions to buy other companies.
    “They were stupid acquisitions,” said David G. Ross, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus who follows the company.
    And even though the truckers have given up some of their pay, the company’s fate — and the truckers’ jobs — are far from secure.
    “Even with the union concessions, it could still go into bankruptcy and close the doors,” Ross said.
    Of about 30,000 ballots cast, 77 percent of the union members voted for the pay cut, the union said Thursday night. The agreement does not ............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00401

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SCHENECTADY
Local jobless rate at 5.9% Year-end count shocks officials; worse still to come
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter

Louis Rosado made a trip up to Schenectady from New York City last week to look for a job. In 2007, Rosado lost his job as a film industry warehouse worker in New York. After fruitlessly searching for a job there and burning through his savings, he decided to head upstate. The 43-year-old had heard good things about Schenectady from a girlfriend, but on Thursday afternoon he was sitting in a employment assistance center on Broadway. “It’s hard right now,” said Rosado.
And it’s getting harder.
Capital Region businesses switched into survival mode during the fourth quarter, resulting in the area’s first loss of jobs between October and December since 1992, according to statistics released Thursday by the state Department of Labor.
The quarter’s labor losses accelerated in December, when the region’s unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent from 5.2 percent in November. That spike pushed joblessness to its highest level for December since 1991.
    The region’s unemployment rate is one base point away from a level likely not seen since the recession of 1982, said Labor Department Market Analyst James Ross.
    Global Insight, a Lexington, Mass., economic analysis firm, recently issued a report projecting Capital Region unemployment would climb to 7.2 percent by the end of 2009. Because the Global Insight forecast was likely based on older data, Ross said, “If anything, the situation will get worse.”
    The region’s non-farm work force ended December with 6,000 fewer workers, totaling at 448,300. That drop came as industries dependent on consumer spending, which traditionally add jobs for the holidays, instead lost them. Over the year, the retail trade sector lost 1,900 workers, government shed 1,200 and the natural resources, mining and construction sector cut 1,800.
    “These are sobering numbers, to put it bluntly,” Labor Department Commissioner M. Patricia Smith said Thursday at a news conference in Schenectady. She spoke at the city’s new One-Stop Employment Center on the ground floor of the new Schenectady County Department of Social Services headquarters, the former Schenectady International building on Broadway.
    The news conference highlighted the return to Schenectady of One-Stop, a county-run center that offers employment education, training services and a network of local, state and national resources for job-seekers and employers. In 2004, Schenectady’s One-Stop Center moved into a similar center in Albany on Central Avenue. The Schenectady One-Stop Center employs eight county and two Labor Department workers.
    Smith said she was surprised by the rapid rate at which New York has been losing jobs. The state’s unemployment rate jumped from 6 percent in November to 7 percent in December, hitting a 14-year high and nearly equaling the nationwide 7.2 percent.
    The November-to-December unemployment rate spike was the biggest since the Department of Labor began tracking the state’s rate in 1976, Ross said.
    Some of the state’s highest unemployment rates for December were in the area the state designates as the Mohawk Valley. Fulton County had an unemployment rate of 9 percent, and Schoharie and Montgomery counties were at 8.7 percent. Schenectady County, by comparison, came in at 6 percent.
    “The numbers are sobering, but they reflect a national trend,” said Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton. He expressed hope that the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package the Obama administration is preparing will counter that trend.
    Since the nation’s economic crisis came to a head in September, Labor Department officials have been scrambling to ...........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00101

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Louis Rosado made a trip up to Schenectady from New York City last week to look for a job. In 2007, Rosado lost his job as a film industry warehouse worker in New York. After fruitlessly searching for a job there and burning through his savings, he decided to head upstate. The 43-year-old had heard good things about Schenectady from a girlfriend, but on Thursday afternoon he was sitting in a employment assistance center on Broadway. “It’s hard right now,” said Rosado.

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Jobless rate soaring in area
Region's unemployment rate hits 5.9 percent as 6,000 thrown out of work

By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer
First published in print: Friday, January 23, 2009

The Capital Region lost 6,000 jobs last year, pushing the region's December unemployment rate to 5.9 percent.
     
The rate is nearly two percentage points higher than the 4.1 percent rate a year earlier, the state Department of Labor said Thursday. And it's the highest rate the region has seen since 1991.

"These are sobering numbers, to put it bluntly," said state Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith.

The statewide jobless rate climbed to 7 percent in December, up from 6 percent in November. That seasonally adjusted statistic represents the biggest month-to-month increase ever recorded by the Labor Department.

The grim numbers come during what some economists say is the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. And they reflect the downturn's spreading toll, even in geographic areas that had seemed resistant to its effects.

"While New York state lagged the nation in entering the recession, we are catching up with a vengeance," said James Parrott, deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a Latham-based think tank.

In the Capital Region, the downturn hit some sectors especially hard. Construction, for example, lost 1,800 jobs from December 2007 to last month.

Trade, transportation and utilities — a Labor Department category that includes many retail jobs — lost 2,700 positions, while the hospitality sector lost 1,000.

Even government, long touted as a source of regional economic stability, lost 1,200 jobs over the year, as local and state governments enacted hiring freezes.

James Ross, who analyzes Capital Region employment date for the Labor Department, said much of the downsizing resulted from curbed consumer spending. Stores didn't hire as many workers as usual, for example, and neither did hotels.

Not all industries suffered: Education and health services added 1,000 jobs in the Capital Region, Ross said. But recent employment cuts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy could be a sign that even strong sectors are weakening, he said.

"As the recession continues, I think we'll see a broadening of the industries that are affected," Ross said. "And it doesn't look like there's going to be a quick turnaround."

The stark Labor Department numbers were not unexpected by many observers, largely because recent months have provided nearly constant negative economic news, including frequent layoff announcements.

The federal government reported Thursday that first-time applications for unemployment benefits jumped last week by 62,000 to 589,000. That was much more than the 540,000 tally economists expected.

Part of the rise was...........http://timesunion.com/AspStori.....p;newsdate=1/23/2009

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ALBANY
National jobless claims set record Job postings result in flood of applicants
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter



Late last year, the Albany Public Library posted a job opening for a public information officer position. It got more than 125 job applications. “That kind of response is certainly unusual,” said Tim Burke, the city library’s interim director. However, such a surge in applications is becoming less unusual at a time when the nation is facing pandemic unemployment.
    The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits reached an all-time high. During the week ending Jan. 17, 4.78 million people were receiving unemployment insurance, the highest number on records dating back to 1967.
    The ranks of Americans with unemployment claims over the week rose by a surprising 159,000, suggesting that workers are having a harder time re-entering the work force after getting laid off.
    Although New York actually experienced a decline in weekly claims — the nation’s third largest, at 12,432 — unemployment continues to weigh on the state.
    Unemployment’s strain was apparent in the “embarrassment of riches” in the applicant pool the Albany library received for the public information offi cer position, Burke said. He said it was not only the allure of working in a library that drove the flood of applications, but “the tough economic times.”
    In Schenectady, Ellis Hospital this month has received 4,900 job applications, though it is only looking to fill 100 positions. January’s tally is 51 percent more than the 3,250 applications it received in October.
    “It’s driven by the economy. That’s a high number, there’s no question about that. But we only have 100 positions we’re trying to fill,” said Randy Stark, Ellis’ director of human resources.
    Other large Capital Region employers, such as Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan in Albany and MVP Health Care in Schenectady, also reported receiving unusually high volumes of job applications. CDPHP’s Web site lists seven job openings while MVP’s site lists 33, most of which are in the information technology field.
    “We are seeing a more than usual increase in employment submissions for our various open positions. Additionally, the quality of the people applying for those positions have been a much better match,” said CDPHP Vice President of Human Capital Management Scott Klenk.
    Job applications are rising at a time when job postings are declining. Online job postings for positions within 50 miles of Albany took their steepest weekly fall since November during the seven-day period ending Tuesday. Next-Act, an Albany career management and transition fi rm, tracked 3,500 postings for the week, down 20 percent from the previous seven-day period.
    The region had as many as 6,000 postings in December and as few as 3,000 in November. Next-Act President Dan Moran said postings typically decline during the last week of the month, though the growing list of U.S. companies announcing mass layoffs might have caused local employers to take pause and pull back in hiring.
    “We’ve seen this cycle before and it should come back,” Moran said of the weekly postings dip.
    The nation’s unemployment rate in December rose to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent. The Capital Region’s rate for that month was lower at 5.9 percent but was still a 17-year high, according to federal and state labor agencies.
    The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday that employers took 2,275 mass layoff actions in December, resulting in the elimination of 226,117 jobs. Although the number of layoffs decreased by 58 from the previous month, the number of workers affected by them rose by 478.
    Since December, the pace seems to have accelerated, with rapid-fire announcements of layoffs by the thousands by major national and international firms.
    This week alone, several ....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00101

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Jobless claims for Feb. piling up Stock market at 6-year low
BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — February is shaping up to be another brutal month of job losses: The number of laid-off workers receiving unemployment benefits hit an all-time high of nearly 5 million, and new jobless claims are at levels not seen since the early 1980s.
    The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people receiving regular unemployment benefits rose by 170,000 to 4.99 million for the week ending Feb. 7, marking the fourth straight week continuing claims have hit a record.
    The surge in joblessness has pushed those claims far above the 2.77 million people getting benefi ts a year ago. The number totals 6.54 million with the inclusion of an additional 1.5 million people who are getting extended benefits under a program passed by Congress last summer.
    And those numbers are sure to climb higher, based on the flood of newly laid-off workers seeking benefits.
    The government reported Thursday that new jobless claims for last week totaled 627,000, the same level as the previous week but higher than economists expected. It also was near the recent high of 631,000 hit three weeks ago, which was the most new weekly claims since 1982 when the country was in another severe recession. The three straight weeks of seasonally adjusted claims above 600,000 also is the longest stretch in more than 26 years.
    “The labor market is in disarray,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “We are seeing job losses across nearly every industry and every region of the country.”
    Based on current trends, net job losses for February could well top 700,000, Zandi said. That would surpass the 598,000 jobs lost in January, which had been the biggest total since 1974.
    Worries about the economy dragged the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 90 points Thursday to close at 7,465.95, its lowest level in more than six years. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index also fell.
    Even with approval of a $787 billion economic stimulus package this week, economists are warning that any recovery may not take hold until late this year at the earliest, given that the housing market is still deteriorating, the financial market has yet to stabilize and job losses are mounting.
    Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said in a speech Thursday that the economy faces obstacles for the next several quarters that would work against a strong recovery.
    “Those obstacles include credit markets not yet returned to healthy functioning, a housing market still weighed down by an excess supply of homes for sale and low business and household confidence,” Lockhart said. “None of these is likely to turn around quickly.”
    In other economic news, wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly in January, according to the Labor Department. Wholesale prices jumped 0.8 percent last month, the biggest gain since July and well above the 0.2 percent increase that economists expected.
    The acceleration was led by a 3.7 percent surge in energy prices. Gasoline prices jumped 15 percent, the biggest gain in 14 months. Even outside the volatile food and energy sectors, wholesale prices showed a bigger-than-expected increase, rising 0.4 percent.
    Meanwhile, the New York-based Conference Board said its January index of leading economic indicators rose 0.4 percent, the second straight monthly gain.
    However, economists dismissed the gains in both wholesale prices and economic indicators as temporary blips that did not signal either a problem with inflation or a potential rebound in the economy.
    The Conference Board said the single biggest boost to the index was the real money supply. The government’s effort to address the credit crisis has put more money in circulation, but banks still have not returned to normal loan operations.
    The inflation jump reflected a big rise in energy costs that analysts said was unlikely to last given slack demand from a spreading global recession.
    The recession at home continues to pummel workers searching for jobs. The four-week average for unemployment benefits applications rose to 619,000, up from 608,500 the previous week. The prior week’s total had been the first time the fi gure topped 600,000 during the current economic downturn, which began in December 2007 and is the longest slump in a quarter-century.
    The cascade of layoff notices in recent weeks has shown that many employers are starting to trim payrolls drastically, abandoning hopes they could retain workers until a rebound took hold.
    Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said Wednesday it will cut nearly 5,000 jobs, or almost 7 percent of the biggest U.S. tire maker’s work force, this..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00500

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Government reports more firms making mass layoffs
BY CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Employers took a large ax to their payrolls in January, the government said Wednesday, and the cuts are likely to get worse over the next few months.
    The Labor Department reported that mass layoffs, or job cuts of 50 or more by a single employer, increased to 2,227 in January, up almost 50 percent from the same month last year. More than 235,000 workers were fired in last month’s cuts.
    January was a bad month for the labor market. Companies from a wide range of sectors announced tens of thousands of layoffs, including Home Depot Inc., Boeing Co., Pfizer Inc. and Caterpillar Inc.
    Not all of those cuts were reflected in the government’s mass layoffs report, which counts actual firings as reported by laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits. Many of the layoffs announced in January will take place over time, meaning that the department’s mass layoff figures will likely keep increasing.
    The pain continued Wednesday. The NFL said commissioner Roger Goodell has taken a 20 percent pay cut and the league dropped 169 jobs through buyouts, layoffs and other reductions. Spartanburg, S.C.-based textile maker Milliken & Co. said it would cut 650 jobs at facilities worldwide and jeweler Zale Corp. said it will close 115 stores and eliminate 245 positions.
    On Monday, troubled flash memory maker Spansion Inc. said it will lay off about 3,000 employees and computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc. announced it will slash as many as 2,000 workers by the end of August.
    In a bit of positive news for the job market, consulting firm Watson Wyatt said Wednesday that the number of large employers planning layoffs has dropped since December, according to a survey it conducted of 245 companies last week.
    The survey found that the proportion of corporations expecting to cut jobs has dropped to 13 percent from 23 percent. But more companies are considering other cost savings, such as increasing health care premiums, eliminating employee benefits like tuition reimbursement, and reducing matching payments for 401(k)-style retirement plans.
    The number of layoffs last month actually declined slightly from December on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said. But the figures were uglier without the seasonal adjustment: mass layoffs jumped to 3,806, from 3,377 in December and 1,647 in January 2008.
    The government seasonally adjusts many economic indicators to smooth out fluctuations resulting from weather changes, holidays and other predictable factors.
    Eleven industries — including mining, manufacturing, transportation and financial services — in January reported the highest levels of job losses on government records dating back to 1996.
    The department said earlier this month that...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00402

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CAPITAL REGION
Area jobless rate now at 7.1% Private sector losses eroding stability of public jobs

BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter


    The unemployment rate in the Capital Region rose to 7.1 percent in January, up from 5.9 percent in December, according to state Department of Labor statistics released Thursday.
    Department spokesman Leo Rosales said January’s was the single highest monthly unemployment rate for the Capital Region since they began tracking the local rate in 1990. The previous record was 6.8 percent in January and February 1992.
    “Even without these numbers, if you ask any unemployed person on the street and they’ll say yes, this is the worst it’s ever been,” Rosales said. “The state work force is still here; however, there are layoffs all around us here, so it’s painting the picture that we’re following the trend of other states around the country. Not only is New York state not immune, the Capital District is no longer immune.”
    New York’s January unemployment rate rose to 7 percent, up from 6.6 percent in December. The state rate is up 2.3 percentage points from January 2008, when it was 4.7 percent.
    “In just the last four months of 2008, the state has lost more than 110,000 private-sector jobs, while the annual statewide unemployment rate has now climbed to a four-year high,” said Peter A. Neenan, director of the Department of Labor’s Division of Research and Statistics.
    Particularly hard-hit was Schoharie County, where the unemployment rate rose to 11.3 percent, the highest percentage of any county in New York.
    Gail Breen, executive director of the Fulton Montgomery and Schoharie County Workforce Development Board, said the unemployment figures for Schoharie County may be somewhat misleading because the last census showed about 42 percent of the employed people in Schoharie County commute to work outside the county. She said layoffs in the Capital Region have hit the small, rural county hard.
    The loss of manufacturing jobs, she added, has devastated Fulton County, which is close behind Schoharie County with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate. Neighboring Montgomery County reported a 10.7 percent jobless rate
    “There are statistics that show for every 10 people in New York state looking for a job there’s only one job out there, so you’ve got that against you to begin with,” Breen said. “Many of the folks in our area and others were working in the manufacturing area and they have skills in manufacturing but when they get laid off from manufacturing, those jobs aren’t going to come back right away, if they come back at all.”
    Albany and Saratoga counties both posted the best number in the region: 6.7 percent.
    In a released statement, Gov. David Paterson said more than 125,000 New Yorkers have lost their jobs over the last six months. He said the unemployment percentage increase over the last two months has been the highest in at least 20 years and almost half a million New Yorkers are collecting unemployment benefits.
    “These numbers clearly demonstrate what we already know: New York is at the epicenter of this global fiscal crisis, and the worst is yet to come,” Paterson said. “We need to act now by making signifi cant changes to the way our state government spends money. We must fundamentally re-evaluate what our state can afford to spend. Just like the thousands of families across New York, our state government needs to tighten its belt and limit spending to what we can afford.”
    Paterson said more state resources will be spent to help the unemployed. He said the Department of Labor is working to distribute more than $200 million in job training funds throughout the state. Also, the federal stimulus package will help workers by increasing the weekly unemployment benefit by $25 to $430 and extending benefit eligibility from 26 to 59 weeks, with federal taxes suspended on the first $2,400 of benefits.
    State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith announced Thursday a series of measures aimed at helping unemployed workers. Smith extended the hours of operation at One-Stop Career Centers across the state, ordered new temporary One-Stop Career Centers to be located at local and community-based organizations in rural communities, and ordered new career preparation workshops be offered by the Department of Labor before its job fairs.
    Smith also extended the calling hours for the Department’s Tel-Claims centers, which handle unemployment insurance claims. The centers will now receive calls until 7 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, which state officials said are traditionally the highest call-volume days. Before the change, the call centers were open only until 5 p.m.
    Breen said her workforce development board should also benefi t from money from the federal stimulus package used to bolster job retraining programs. She said from 2000 to 2008, her organization lost 56 percent of its funding but will now be capable of assisting more workers using the federal funds.
    “With the stimulus package, the Workforce Investment Act is being funded at a higher level again for 18 months,” she said. “That allows us to take more dollars and turn them into training dollars for people to go back to .....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00100

Quoted Text

CAPITAL REGION
Record 35,000 jobless in region
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Michael Lamendola at 395-3114 or lamend@dailygazette.com.

    Unemployment in the Capital Region hit a record high in February, with nearly 35,000 people out of work due to the recession, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
    The unemployment rate for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan area was 7.6 percent in February, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from January and 2.1 percentage points from February 2008, said state labor analyst James Ross.
    “It is a record level, going back to 1990 when we started keeping statistics,” Ross said. “The year-to-year jump is the largest we have seen.”
    Last February, 23,500 people were out of work.
    Areas hardest hit were consumer-driven industries, which include the trade, transportation, leisure and hospitality sectors of the economy. These sectors represent retail and wholesale stores, hotels and motels, and restaurants and taverns.
    “We have fewer jobs and we have less money. Housing values have dropped and confidence in the future economy is weak,” Ross said, explaining the dramatic increase in unemployment from a year ago.
    The Labor Department noticed the economy weakening last year and it is now seeing job losses in sectors — such as information and education — that were once immune to economic downturns, Ross said. The information sector includes radio, television and newspapers, which are shedding jobs as advertising revenues plummet.
    Capital Region unemployment numbers are expected to get worse in coming months, Ross said, particularly in light of the state’s ongoing budget problems. Gov. David Paterson this week announced he plans to lay off 8,900 state workers to help close a $16.2 billion budget deficit.
    Area unemployment will likely decline later this year as federal stimulus money takes effect and construction begins on a massive computer chip facility in Saratoga County, Ross said.
    On a positive note, the Capital Region is weathering the recession better than the state as a whole, which has an unemployment rate of 8.4 percent, and the nation, which has an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent.
    Schenectady County’s unemployment rate for February is 7.8 percent, up from 7.1 percent in January and 5.2 percent in February 2008.
    Albany’s rate is 7 percent, up from 6.6 percent in January and 4.7 percent in February 2008.
    Rensselaer’s rate is 8.2 percent, up from 7.5 percent in January and 5.4 percent in February 2008.
    Saratoga’s rate is 7.4 percent, up........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00502