615,500 Angelenos Are Officially Out Of Work. What Can Be Done To Help Them?

The Great Recession has turned many of our lives upside down beginning with our employment. Unemployment nationally is hovering around 9.1% and 12.7% in Los Angeles County translating to 615,500 locally unemployed. It is hard to escape the impact of the economy on our friends, our neighbors and ourselves. For most of us, life appears normal but some of us are filled with the quiet desperation as we pursue meaningful work.

The market has been fickle wrecking whole industries like commercial real estate. One need only look at the empty store fronts along Ventura to get a sense of the scope of the problem. As a result tens of thousands of brokers, agents, janitors and building engineers are out of work. Others lost their jobs due to business competition and corporate downsizing. Boarders Books employees lost their jobs because of poor corporate planning while workers at Medtronic and Northrop Grumman lost jobs due to California’s onerous employment regulations and high taxes. Still other companies, like Ralph's may see the economy as a good time to downsize and reap bigger profits.   

The Patch is a good vehicle to ask: How can those how have stable jobs help those who don’t? I’d like to hear particularly from those who have been out of work 6 months or longer. Have you moved in with relatives or friends? Are you making due with a part time job? Are you finding any work in your field? Have you started a new business? More than anything, what can be done to help you get back to work?