It's been called the Equal Opportunity Recession, impacting virtually every industry and employee skill level. And although today's economic crisis is severe, there's hope. Serve America Act, the first sweeping reform of national-service programs in 16 years designed to create an army of 250,000 volunteers, recently became law. How can federal-service programs help you in a recession?
To find out, DiversityInc asked its chief operating officer, 59-year-old Stu Arnold. Having survived three recessions, "I'm old enough to have an interesting perspective on the job market," he says. Here's an edited interview with Arnold in our Newark, N.J., office.
How many recessions have you witnessed?
The first I remember was the middle of the '70s, and then there was the blip that happened after the stock-market crash in 1987. Next, there was a nasty short one in 1991. But by far, the worst recession I had seen was the '70s. The unemployment rate in New York City was around 11 percent. Businesses were closing, crime was crazy and New York almost defaulted on its debt obligations.
That's when I rolled into New York with $500 and my pickup truck. I came from a small farm town in Iowa of 2,600 people to visit my sister in Brooklyn. I loved the diversity and interesting people speaking all these different languages. I decided this is where I wanted to be, so I tried to find a job. But I had no skills and was just out of college. I looked for four or five months and could not find a single job. There would be a job in the paper for a waiter and, literally, 400 or 500 people showed up.
One of my sister's friends worked for Queens College and told me about this federal law that passed called the Comprehensive Education Training Act (CETA). It allowed for the hiring of people in this deep, deep recession who were unemployed. It was very low wage, but I signed up. I made just enough to survive. I ended up tutoring kids with disabilities in how to write. It really tuned me into the absolute lack of [job] opportunities for people with disabilities. I had no idea it was so hard for them to find work. I did that for two years. [CETA] was a bridge for me. It allowed me to get a foothold in New York and hang on just long enough to find meaningful work.
How do past recessions compare to today's?
This recession is unlike anything I've ever experienced--the numbers of people who have lost jobs, the fear, the confusion. I've never seen the markets seize up like this. Purchases have just stopped. The problem is there's no credit. That wasn't the way it was before. The recessions I've seen in the past weren't as dramatic as this one.
How can federal programs such as CETA (then) and Serve America Act (now) help?
There have been a lot of historical arguments against government intervention.
I think they're a good thing. People that have lost jobs or cannot find work pretty rapidly lose their hope. That's one of the worst things that can happen--when people start dropping out of the job market. CETA made me feel like I was productive and gave me a way to survive. Those are really important things for both people who have lost their jobs and young people just starting to look for their first jobs.
Let's face it: This country has prospered under the capitalist system in a way no other country has prospered before. People don't want to see the capitalist system go away. However, they don't want to see our economy fall apart. And if we do nothing or little, there's a big chance we could be crippled for a long, long time. It's a choice between doing nothing and trying the best possible things you can think of to help cushion us in this decline. There's simply no choice. You have to give people hope--and that's what the WPA [Works Progress Administration] did during the Great Depression. It gave people hope that they'd survive.
What advice would you give people in the job market now?
If I was a kid coming out of college, had taken a good crack at job hunting and couldn't find work and had a desire to get an advanced degree, I wouldn't sit around banging my head against the wall and getting depressed. I would get back enrolled [in college], take out a student loan, which are still available, and go back to school to be ready for when this economy turns around.
If that isn't an option and you have to find a job, make a great impression. The thing that job interviewers look for most are intelligence, clarity of thought, a basic knowledge of their company (do your research), job skills, personality and communications skills. If your job search goes on for more than six months, I'd recommend that you take a position that may not meet your long-term aspirations but will pay some bills and keep you engaged. That's what the CETA program did for me.
Click the arrow below to watch a video of Obama signing the Serve America Act into law.
