Mar/100
Area’s unemployed say they’ll believe there’ll be jobs when they see them
AMANDA PALLESCHI
Of the Patriot-News
Hours before President Barack Obama tried to reassure the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans that they haven't been forgotten, Jason Leininger signed in at Cumberland County CareerLink Center and listed "Job assistance" as the reason for his visit.
He was one of 77 people who signed in before 1 p.m. Wednesday, listing either job search or enrollment in a state re-employment assistance program as reasons for dropping by.
At the Capital Region CareerLink office on Wiconisco Street in Harrisburg, that number was 121 before 2 p.m.
With most counties with unemployment rates hovering around 7 percent -- compared to the 8.9 percent statewide and 10 percent nationwide rates -- the midstate might not be the epicenter of the populist discontent that many national political experts say Obama has failed to tap.
Leininger, 34, was making his second trip to the CareerLink office in Carlisle looking for any kind of paving or excavation work.
Those who find themselves out of work or out of luck said they will only believe it when they see it.
It's the work Leininger has done all his life. His father owned a company that did excavating and paving. He graduated from Northern York County High School in the mid-1990s. He said he wishes he'd have tried college, but at $20 an hour, the work always paid the bills.
He credited federal stimulus projects for keeping him well employed through the Hummelstown-based Handwerk Contractors, until he injured his back while paving a Wormleysburg street in the fall. He's used to being laid off from the end of Christmas until the end of March: It's the nature of the construction business, he said.
"It's always been my life, and I make enough in the summer," he said.
But Cumberland County in particular might be one place where job-loss discontent is felt acutely and Obama's words watched closely Wednesday night.
There's a laundry list of employers who have left hundreds of jobs in their wake as they've closed shop or relocated: Tyco, Williams-Sonoma, Carlisle Tire & Wheel.
The unemployment rate has plunged steeper than any other county in the midstate -- from 3.2 percent in 2007 to 7.1 percent by the end of 2009.
Those tuning in to the president's address expected to find him offering up examples of small, locally based hopes, similar to the infusion of federal stimulus dollars expected to help invest in business and idled redevelopment properties, like the closed IAC plant in Carlisle.
"In this state, there's become a distrust of many politicians. I'm not sure anybody can say anything that's going to catch somebody's attention," Jeff Palm said.
Palm, the executive director of the Mechanicsburg Chamber of Commerce, works with many businesses in the county that keep a close watch on proposed initiatives for small businesses at the state and federal levels that are meant to spur job growth.
Karen Bordner, 69, of Lemoyne, might agree. She has a resume that includes more than 42 years at an insurance agency and a memory that includes the intricacies of licensed property and casualty insurance. She can also tell you the day she blew out her hip getting out of her car after a long commute home -- Feb. 12, 2007 -- and the day three months later when her employer let her go from a job she loved because of it.
Her Social Security payments are too high to qualify her for other federal and state entitlement programs for housing and prescription drugs.
Bordner, whose husband died in 2002, has called U.S. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. and Arlen Specter to voice her opinions on the stimulus and health care.
She planned to watch the State of the Union address. "I wouldn't miss it for the world," she said, adding that she wanted to hear Obama talk about job creation first, but doubted she'd be impressed.
"They're not looking at the bigger picture. They aren't thinking far enough," she said. "If you want to fix a balloon, you don't put a patch on it."
Bordner dreams about going back to the field she loved, where she made $35,000 plus $12,000 to $15,000 in commission a year.
She spent Wednesday answering phones at the Mechanicsburg offices of Experience Works, a national nonprofit training and employment organization for older workers.
There, she gets $7.25 an hour at the part-time job.
She needs a real job, she said.
"And I don't know which czar to go to."
Staff writer Matt Miller contributed to this report.
