June Gloom
Three weeks ago, I picked up and moved west to Los Angeles, following on the heels of generations of fortune-seekers since the Gold Rush.
Only I didn’t pick the right generation. At 11.2%, unemployment in California is now approaching record levels, up 70% from a year ago. The state’s non-farm economy lost more than 60,000 jobs in each of the last three months, and 114,000 before that in the shortest month of the year.
I spent last year in Reunion Island, teaching English in the Indian Ocean on the French government’s payroll. The economy was not a driving concern of mine when I booked my ticket home, but now that my reunions with friends and family have passed, I’m beginning to feel some nostalgia for the comforts of a stable paycheck.
When I got back this winter, I stopped for a few hours in Chicago to see a friend. It was early March, and we took refuge from the 20 degree gusts outside over a cup of coffee.
“Why the hell did you come back here?” he asked me. ”The economy is shit right now; that island you were on sounded pretty good.”
Things are particularly bad for young people, with unemployment affecting more than a quarter of 16-19 year olds in California. In my age group, the recently-out-of-college set, job prospects must not be much brighter: Kaplan, the test preparation service, reports a 45% increase nationwide in interest for its business, law, and graduate program courses over the last year.
And yet, California seemed promising to me. I had plenty of work in New York, driving truckfuls of bicycles from the Navy Yard to points around the city and bringing them back again, but I couldn’t stay. Expletives were beginning to roll off my tongue like drops of saliva. I love New York, but it was driving me crazy.
Before I left the east coast, I told people that LA—which has lost 167,000 jobs in the last year—seemed “like a good place to improvise.” And it has been. I am dozens of bike miles and a few dollars in photocopies deep in the job search. Craigslist has contributed greatly to my improvisational email skills, as I rattle off my related experience for positions as a “Catering Production Assistant” and “Clerical Transcriptionist.” A few people have even been impressed by the Ivy league degree which stands out as the most expensive item on my resume, and suggested that I am overqualified to scoop ice cream or sweep a kitchen. No one is paying me to be overqualified, I tell them.
In a different era, I might have had a shot getting work on the PTA beat at a small daily, but headlines suggest that newspapers aren’t hiring. Still, as an aspiring writer, I’m not drawn to the parade of consulting and law firms that have plucked up many of my classmates. Whatever work I get, there must be time left over.
I am not yet broke, but I am trying to anticipate. I have discovered the wonders of produce from the 99-cent store and end-of-the-day deals at the farmer’s market. My brother and I are practicing home improvement on a budget. We have planted banana trees salvaged from a lifetime of neglect in a local parking lot and stockpiled dumpster-sourced wood for our various building projects.
The whole state may soon have to follow our thriftiness: budget shortfalls have gridlocked state government, with estimates that the deficit will reach $35.9 billion by the end of this year—equivalent to $1929.69 for every worker in California.
The upside of all this, of course, has been the voyage of discovery which is the natural result of my continuing joblessness. While other people are jolted from bed each day knowing exactly where they must go and to whom they must answer, the city is my oyster. I set out in my finest dress and begin to inquire in back alleys and restaurant kitchens within a wider and wider radius. Should something outlandish appear on internet job listings, I have no reason not to take three hours in the middle of the day and go pursue it.
And so I’d like to bring you along, to explore the businesses and meet the strange people who, somehow, in the midst of recession, are still hiring.
Who knows? One of them may even hire me. LA’s annual period of overcast skies, June Gloom, appears to be lifting. Last week, these words could be found at the top of a story on the state’s economy: ”Forecast for California: Gradual Clearing.”
