Buddy, can you spare a job?

Even when a person takes a creative approach to searching for a job, as Nick Willard did, it’s a tough market out there

By Christina Cooke

The Times, Apr 16, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

Jaime Valdez / The Times

Job seeker Nick Willard hands his resume to an interested party at Exit 6 off Highway 217 in Tigard on Friday.

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Dressed in a black suit and rust-colored tie, Nick Willard stood on the shoulder of Exit 6 off Highway 217 North in Tigard and passed out his resume.

As cars pulled to the top of the ramp and idled at the red light, Willard waved at drivers and approached those who seemed interested to pass them a paper containing his resume on one side, his cover letter on the other.

“If I had a job to offer, I’d give it to you,” said a woman in dark blue Honda Accord as she accepted the sheet and drove off.

Willard, a 41-year-old Desert Storm veteran, has been looking for work since January without luck. He decided last week it was time to step up the self-promotion.

“In this economic time, you have to do something different,” he said. “When there are 500 people looking for the same job, you’re only a piece of paper. This way, I get out there and let people know I’m here.”

Though not all are hitting the highways, many people are finding themselves in situations similar to Willard’s — they need work, but businesses aren’t hiring.

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March topped 12 percent and is among the highest in the nation, according to the Oregon Employment Department. State economists expect it to continue rising.

While Tigard is faring better than Oregon as a whole, its unemployment rate is on the rise as well. The percentage of unemployed Tigard residents grew from 6.3 percent in December to 8.5 percent in February, according to preliminary non-seasonally adjusted numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In February 2008, the unemployment rate in Tigard was a mere 4.5 percent.

State economist David Cooke speculated that the February 2009 unemployment rate in Tigard would be 7.8 or 7.9 percent if it was seasonally adjusted to compare with the state rate.

Amy Vandervliet, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department, noted that the city rates represent more an educated guess than an actual portrayal because they are simply a disaggregation of state and metro rates. Nevertheless, she does not expect the Tigard rates to decline anytime soon. Other things will happen first, she said.

“The thing about unemployment rates is they lag behind other factors,” she said. “The economy could have turned around, but the unemployment rate could continue to go up for a few months.”

Tigard Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Christopher Zoucha said he knows Tigard job seekers are feeling the crunch.

“I don’t know a lot of companies that are actively hiring people right now,” he said. “It’s more about looking back at themselves and maintaining and trying to get efficiency out of who they have rather than bringing in somebody new to accomplish those tasks.”

Overwhelmed by applications

Zoucha said when the chamber posted an opening for an administrative assistant last October, it received 250 applications within two days and had to take down the posting early.

“We had people who had worked in chambers for 30 years applying for a position that was no more than an administrative job,” Zoucha said. “There’s no way I’m going to hire this person and have them feel they’re in the position to be under-utilized and under-paid.”

Having to turn away overqualified people “puts you in a weird position as an employer,” he said.

Aldo Ruiz-Jeronimo, part owner of Taqueria La Fuente on Main Street, said his business, too, receives more applications than it needs. La Fuente is not hiring, but people stop by all the time looking for work.

“I’m getting five to 10 applications a week,” Ruiz-Jeronimo said between putting in a takeout order and handing a menu to a man in a booth. “People walk in, drop off their resumes or ask for applications, or they’re asking if anyone else is hiring at the moment.”

La Fuente trimmed its staff from 13 or 14 people last September to eight or nine now, Ruiz-Jeronimo said. The restaurant recently added seven more tables and hopes to hire an additional employee this summer, he said, but that will all depend on the economy.

As of March, the number of jobs in Oregon had dropped by 5.7 percent, or by 98,300 jobs, from its peak at 1,738,100 in Dec. 2007, Vandervliet said.

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