By Amanda Julius
After losing her job in January, Esther Coleman became a statistic. She is now one of the 20,000 Americans who were laid off last month even as national unemployment dropped from 10 to 9.7 percent, according to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor today.
As an updated report on unemployment statistics revealed that the economy has so far lost 930,000 more jobs in the 12 months leading up to March 2009 than was initially believed, hopeful talk of economic recovery feels far from reality for some among Brooklyn’s jobless.
Coleman worked as a security guard at a Crown Heights women’s center until new regulations were introduced requiring all employees to have a high school diploma, which she did not.
“Everything is a chain reaction,” Coleman said, waiting patiently in line with her young son at the New York City Job Center in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “Has the recession affected me? I lost my job. I lost my apartment. Now I’m down here in public assistance.”
Coleman defaulted on rent payments earlier this month, and her eviction notice has been served for February 23rd. She lives in Crown Heights with her four children, and she is now unable to pay for gas or electricity.
From the size of the line at the job center, which snakes around the back of the room and up the stairs to the entrance, it is clear that Coleman is not alone.
Across the borough, residents continue to feel the effects of the recession. Reginald Lavaque was forced to accept a much lower paycheck when he was laid off from his job as a hospital sterile processing technician. He now provides home care, a job for which he says he is over-qualified.
“It pays a whole lot less, but I need the job. It’s the only job I can get right now,” he said.
His cousin and nephew, he added, are both recently unemployed.
In January, the labor department reported that 903 million Americans had lost their jobs and were out of work. Black people were hit especially hard, with a jobless rate of 16.5 percent of the national total. Still, there are signs of improved hiring with employment growing in healthcare and manufacturing, as well as for temporary workers. But, the department reported, jobs in construction and transportation continue to fall.
Leaving the job center Coleman gestured back to the rows of jobseekers still waiting to be seen.
“It’s not enough to hear about it,” she said. “You have to go through this to understand.”
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