18% of Workers in Study Lost Jobs

TRENTON, N.J. -- Two-thirds of workers laid off in the last three years received no severance package or other compensation from their employer, according to a new study by researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Connecticut.

The study of 1,015 randomly selected working-age adults, titled “The Disposable Worker: Living in a Job-Loss Economy,� also found that one in five of those interviewed, or 18%, had been laid off during the 2000-03 period.

Of those who lost their jobs, only 49% of the ones who had earned at least $40,000 annually said they received unemployment insurance benefits. For those who made less than $40,000 a year, the number with unemployment insurance benefits shrank to 35%.

“There’s neither private sector nor government support that’s going to most people,� said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, which conducted the study.

Serge Kher had never been unemployed until his job as general manager of a car dealership in Virginia Beach, Va., was eliminated in March.

After sending out 107 resumes, trolling Internet job sites and looking into different fields, the 48-year-old father of four had just one interview.

“I’m starting to go crazy,� he said. “There are days when I feel that I’m worthless.�

Kher, now a stay-at-home dad, got one month’s severance pay and is collecting $300 a week in unemployment benefits. His family went without health benefits for two months until his wife found a job offering the insurance.

Still, he’s received more aid than most Americans laid off since 2000, according to the study.

Barely one-fourth of those surveyed said their employer extended their health benefits after they were laid off, and less than one-fifth said they received help finding a job, career counseling or skills training.

Despite the National Bureau of Economic Research’s July 17 proclamation that the recession ended in November 2001 -- because gross domestic product began rising then -- Van Horn says he and plenty of other economists disagree that there has been a turnaround.

“There are still a lot of people unemployed,� he said. “If you’re a typical person and not an economist, you don’t really care about the GDP.�

Businesses continue to announce thousands of layoffs. The national unemployment rate hit a nine-year high of 6.4% in June, and many economists think it could hit 6.6% this year before starting to decline.

In addition, workers are remaining unemployed longer than in previous recessions, wrote Van Horn and the study’s co-author, Kenneth Dautrich, director of Connecticut’s Center for Survey Research and Analysis.

Thirty percent of those surveyed received only one to two weeks’ notice their jobs were being cut, and 34% had no warning.

The survey also found that 40% of those who lost their jobs worry it will happen again in the next three to five years.

Since James Malloy, 58, was laid off as a truck driver in September 2000, he’s washed cars and mowed lawns, then worked part-time for the Durham, N.C., transit company with no benefits to keep up with his mortgage and car loan.

“I was just scratching for pennies. It was tough times,� said Malloy, whose brother also hasn’t had steady work for about three years.

Married with two grown children, Malloy finally got a full-time supervisory job working nights with the transit system on July 1.

But a new company just took over the transit system and quickly cut four of its 130 jobs.

Does he feel secure? “Not very,� Malloy said.