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SALT LAKE CITY — On average, a person most likely to file for unemployment insurance during the economic downturn was male, under 30 and has worked in the construction industry.
Donald Hannoh, who has been out of work since April, said his job search in the construction industry has been frustrating.
"Anywhere I go, they say 'It's slow' or that sort of thing," he said. "It's hard right now. I'm just driving around looking for a job."
New Utah Department of Workforce Services statistics also suggest that the economic downturn has been tough sledding for the over-50 set. Twenty-two percent of people seeking unemployment insurance benefits are 50 and older.
- 12 percent of Utahns who sought unemployment insurance had a bachelor's degree or higher
- 10 percent of claimants made more than $50,000 a year
- 1/3 of claimants did not graduate from high school
- 1/5 of claimants made less than $10,000 a year
- 63 percent of unemployment insurance applicants are men; 37 percent are women
Dennis Ogden, 64, was seeking work as a house painter at a DWS Metro Employment Center in downtown Salt Lake Thursday. He has tried to make ends meet on Social Security and food stamps, he said.
"I figured I needed to get back to work," he said.
But finding work at Ogden's age is far more challenging.
"We're too experienced. They're afraid you're not going to catch their scheme," Ogden said of potential employers.
Glenda Neukirchner, 58, said she is "just looking for someone to give me a chance." She is seeking a job in the medical billing industry.
"It's been very hard because they're looking for the younger workers," she said.
Blaine Wright concurred. "I'm 58. I've never in my life seen job hunting this bad. If you're in my age bracket, although no one will say it to your face, but you can see it on their faces."
He and Neukirchner said they have also experienced difficulty finding work because they do not speak Spanish, which gives many job applicants a leg up as the state becomes more diverse.
By and large, people with higher levels of education fare better in the job market during economic downturns. However, the DWS statistics said 12 percent of Utahns who sought unemployment insurance had a bachelor's degree or higher. Ten percent of claimants made more than $50,000 a year.
Jamie Martinez, 30, has a bachelor's degree in mass communications. "Unfortunately, I have a disability that makes it a little harder to find and keep work," she said.
Martinez said she has also run into several employment scams involving multi-level marketing companies and identity theft.
The statistics say one-third of claimants did not graduate from high school and one-fifth made less than $10,000 a year.
More men have filed for unemployment insurance than women, 63 percent versus 37 percent, which officials attribute to more males working in the hardest-hit industries: construction and manufacturing.
Still, the numbers suggest that more people are returning to work, as initial claims and continued claims trend downward. The amount paid out in claims has also decreased from a year ago.
"There is a recovery but it's very modest. We're seeing the same trends," said Bill Starks, director of Unemployment Insurance for the Department of Workforce Services.
For instance, new "initial claims" averaged 2,366 per week during the last month, or down 17 percent over last year. Meanwhile, "continuing claims" have averaged 23,854 per week during the last quarter, down 35 percent over last year.
Data collected by the agency shows that most people who applied for unemployment insurance during the economic downturn had never before applied for this benefit. Many did not know how to search for work online or use the Internet to apply for unemployment insurance benefits or other programs.
"Now everything is in an online environment. When a lot of them got their jobs, it wasn’t that way," Starks said.
Utah's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, from which state uninsurance claims are paid, has a balance of $310 million, down from $855 million in August 2008. The 2008-2010 recession has been the nation's longest since the end of World War II.
The average annual payout for unemployment insurance benefits has been $415 million between 2009 and 2011. By comparison, the annual average payout for benefits between 2005 and 2007 was $100 million.
Current projections suggest the trust, which is funded by payroll taxes, could dip to $160 million in March of 2012 and 2013 and gradually grow after that. The trust was insolvent in 1982 and 1983, but the state borrowed from the federal government to meet its obligations but repaid the loans within the same year.
Starks said the state has a number of initiatives intended to keep the trust fund solvent, which include detecting overpayments and fraud. Eighty-one cases were referred for criminal prosecution in 2010, Starks said.
"We've been really proactive to do what we can to keep that trust fund solvent. It's not just looking for fraud. It's engaging the claimants to get them re-employed a lot faster."
Email:mcortez@ksl.com
