SALT LAKE CITY — Before dawn and hours ahead of the lunchtime rush, Tom Hollister can be found reinventing himself in the kitchen of his west-side strip mall delicatessen.
The owner of the Rose Canyon Deli must prep and cook a hunk of roast beef, mix tuna and chicken salads, and combine chicken and rice into a lip-smacking soup.
Long days are familiar for him, but the work is far removed from the career path he started on fresh out of high school, when he signed on in the plating shop of then defense contractor E-Systems, which became Raytheon, which in turn became Moog Aircraft Group, part of multinational Moog Inc.
Hollister was 28 years into that career as a hydraulics expert when the company told him and a couple hundred other Utah-based employees that their work would end and the jobs would be transferred to company plants in the Philippines or California. He left the company May 14.
Moog's not alone. Blame a sour economy, blame the lure of cheaper labor overseas, blame cost-cutting or whatever else you want. Layoffs in this recession have become a fact of life. By June's end, Utah's unemployment rate was 7.2 percent, with nearly 100,000 people out of work. That doesn't count those who have run out of benefits or stopped looking.
Nationally, unemployment stands at 9.5 percent. Add in those so discouraged they've stopped hunting for jobs and the numbers soar to 9 percent in Utah and 11 percent nationwide. Some 1.2 million non-seasonally adjusted Americans fell into this category in July, up 389,000 from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As economists point to hopeful signs that the worst of the recession is over, they don't hold employment figures up as proof. High unemployment and the low spending that goes with it are expected to continue through 2010, says Mark Knold, chief economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services. Some economists say it will be at least 2012 before things turn around.
Moog (pronounced MOHG) folks call being laid off getting "the boot." And while in some companies it may be sudden and unexpected, Moog employees were told in September 2009 that they'd lose their jobs, the result of declining air travel with fewer people flying the Boeing planes whose flight systems and components Moog refurbishes and services.
Then Moog met with each employee to discuss a termination date. Those who agreed to stay through the end — usually April or May — received more severance pay. The company has paid health insurance benefits through the end of each employee's severance payments and hired professionals to help with résumé writing, job applications and interview skills.
Representatives from Moog Inc., based in East Aurora, N.Y., declined to be interviewed for the story, saying they don't comment on reorganizations.
The "booted" workers have entered a new and less secure world, where as of June, it took an average unemployed American 35 weeks to find a new job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 46 percent of unemployed workers needed at least 26 weeks to find employment. Curt Stewart, Utah Department of Workforce Services spokesman, said Utah doesn't track that number.
"It's clear that we're seeing people unemployed for longer because we're seeing people in their third and fourth extension" of unemployment benefits, he said.
Reaction to news of Moog's pending layoffs varied. Many engineers headed to companies like L3 Communications, where some secured jobs. Of those, a portion left Moog immediately, while others stayed to their termination dates. Some in departments that were going away found spots in the few remaining Utah Moog departments.
Cheryl Fisher was with Moog for 15 years in several capacities, working her way into the quality-inspection job she held for 11 years. She also became the Federal Aviation Administration representative for the company. Two weeks after her April "boot," she went to work for a Salt Lake company that needed her FAA experience.
"I have had a really hard time leaving all of my friends," Fisher said. "We were all really close, and when someone new started, you took them under your wing."
That sentiment was echoed by Dean Birt, a longtime employee who took the unusual step of creating a yearbook of employees so they'd remember each other.
Employees could apply for jobs in the company's other locations. But John Medved, who spent a decade testing flight control systems for Moog, said pretty much nobody wanted to relocate.
Instead, said George Hulett, "we were a pretty dedicated bunch of people, so we just kept on training the people who took our jobs." His layoff date was supposed to have been in December, but the company let him stretch it out by flying to California for three months to teach workers there his skill, overhauling and repairing parts. That way, he was able to reach the 15-year mark with the company, which improved his severance package.
At 59, he's feeling a little old to start looking yet again and a little young to pack it in, career-wise.
"I'm still thinking full-time (work), and I want to stay in the aircraft maintenance field, with what I've been doing," he said. "I hope. ..."
Hulett has breathing room some former co-workers don't have: military retirement from 20 years in the Air Force. But his wife was laid off earlier from Smith Optical, and her unemployment has run out. His boot was a double-whammy.
Fisher's worry was health insurance. She carries the policy for herself and her husband, who is self-employed. "It was very stressful," she said, "wondering will we be able to make it, will I find a job that pays close to what I was making."
Even with her fairly soft landing, she notes, she still felt bruised.
Jimmy Reese, 60, could teach the mythical phoenix a thing or two about resiliency. And he, too, frets about insurance.
Chest pains between Christmas and New Years 2009 led to quadruple bypass heart surgery a few weeks later. He returned to work after six months, sporting a pacemaker and taking blood thinners. In less than a year, he was among those whose jobs were gone. But just a day after the man who'd worked for Moog for 35 years punched his timecard a final time, Reese starting work nearly full-time at H&R Precision — a Moog subcontractor — located a stone's throw north of the Moog facility. (See accompanying story.)
"I guess you could say I've been lucky," he said.
Reese works part-time by choice, doing what he did at Moog, removing the raised particles, shavings and ragged edges that appear when metal blanks and parts are machined. Many of his old co-workers often drop by H&R to chat. His job, however, does not yet come with health insurance. And though his new employers have told him they're anxious to help, he worries about that.
Others, like Medved, who is temporarily mixing dough and boxing cookies, have found what career coach Ford Myers, author of "Get The Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring," describes as a "bridge job" — temporary work.
"A bridge job could be working for your family construction company, driving a truck, substitute teaching, working in a retail store, anything that pays the bills and keeps you productive in the work world," Myers said.
His advice for people in bridge jobs: "You have to keep it very, very clear in your mind that this is a bridge job," he said. "That's not who you are going to identify with as a professional."
Myers doesn't believe people who are unemployed should sit back and wait for the economy to improve. "Even in this job market, there's nothing keeping you from networking, from interviewing, from looking for new opportunities, talking to recruiters."
Networking is easier than many believe, and you needn't be an extrovert. Find people in your industry you'd like to know, and call them, Myers said. But don't cold call. Try to get introduced through a mutual associate.
"Reassure them you're not asking them for a job," Myers said. "You want to benefit from their knowledge, experience and contacts."
Networking should benefit both parties. If you don't feel like you have much to offer, just talk and pay attention. People love to complain about life's challenges, and it isn't hard to coax that type of information out of them. And when you find that new job, keep networking.
Jennifer Armistead, who operates JA Career Coaching, has been working with the displaced as they plot their future. She said many companies used the first wave of layoffs as an excuse to rid themselves of people who had not been a good fit or didn't perform particularly well. And yes, they laid off some key players, as well, as the economy soured. This time around, she's seeing more consolidating of departments, product lines and people.
Where a couple of years ago people who were laid off let their severance run out — or almost run out — before they started searching, those who are losing jobs now are looking hard for jobs immediately. They've seen the struggle and how long people have been out of work. They're not taking chances, Armistead said.
Studies have also repeatedly shown that older workers remain out of work longer than their younger counterparts. Julie Swaner, program manager of alumni career services at the University of Utah, recently worked with a very polished, professional 50-year-old man. "He was clearly a leader," but it took a year and a half to get a job offer, although he worked diligently at it. In contrast, a fellow in his late 30s got a job in two weeks, although Swaner said he was extraordinarily lucky with his timing, "the right person at the right time." And while finding a job "requires focus and diligence, there's an element of luck to it. You hear something, plug in and happen to be what they're looking for that day.
"I'm seeing it all over the place, from two months to two years. There's no rhyme or reason here, and that's what makes it so hard to keep people's spirits up," Swaner said.
There's a "huge trend" for people who have college degrees to return to their alma maters for career help after a layoff, said Swaner, and that's where she comes in.
Many companies, prior to a layoff, are expending considerable effort to help those who are about to be let go land gently, as Moog tried to do, by providing varied services, from résumé building to networking help. Mary Cosgrove, owner of What's Working Well? in Salt Lake, said she has provided monthly workshops for a number of companies' staffs during downsizing. Some companies have set up Facebook pages where people can exchange job leads. "I often hear, 'If I don't get the job, I hope one of them do,' " referring to co-workers and friends, she said.
She runs a job club. The online networking site LinkedIn has started groups to let people share leads, as well.
But some companies are actually doing less the second — or third — time around than they did the first, she said, with reduced severance or fewer services.
Layoffs often result in significant losses to a person's income, never to be regained. That's the conclusion of a 2009 working paper by Columbia University economics professor Til von Wachter, along with Jae Song of the Social Security Administration and Joyce Manchester of the Congressional Budget Office. They investigated the long-term effects of the 1982 recession and found that workers who had been with their companies at least three years and who had lost their jobs because of reductions in force of at least 30 percent struggled regaining previous wage levels, even 15 to 20 years after their initial layoff. They also discovered that overall earnings for those involved in a reduction in force were 15 percent to 20 percent smaller than for those who didn't suffer through a layoff.
Explanations are myriad, but one of the biggest reasons is that when a laid-off worker regains employment, it is usually at the bottom of their new company, leaving them more vulnerable to being laid off again.
But losses suffered in a layoff aren't limited to income alone.
Cosgrove, Swaner and Armistead all talk about a possible loss of self-confidence, along with the loss of security. A job even provides daily structure without which some people flounder, said Michael McKee, a psychologist at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. "At the extreme end, there are people who lose meaning and hope."
"What I feel is different now is that a great many people are anticipating that things will get worse," McKee added. "People are talking about a depression. And it's everyone who's worried, even people with a great deal of money and middle-class people. It's getting harder to muster some optimism."
Contributing: Rebecca Palmer
e-mail: chuck@desnews.com; lois@desnews.com; lhancock@desnews.com