LOS ANGELES, March 5, 2009
Unemployed Flock To Job Fairs
CBS Evening News: Thousands Of Out-Of-Work Americans Are Turning To Stadium And Arena Sized Events To Find Jobs
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Play CBS Video Video Millions Flock To Find Jobs As the worldwide economic crisis causes even more mass layoffs, more and more unemployed Americans are desperately attempting to find some source of income. Ben Tracy reports from Los Angeles.
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A crowd waits for jobs outside Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, March 5, 2009 (CBS)
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Interactive On The Job Explore America's labor economy, track recent major layoffs and meet key economic players.
The crowd filing into Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles isn't coming to see a game. They're here to get a job - all 7,000 of them.
"I got here at 4:30 in the morning," says one job-seeker.
"I'm just trying to find work wherever I can get it right now," says another. "I got laid off."
"I'm not picky I will take anything," says a third.
That's a good attitude, Tracy reports, since the 500 jobs up for grabs include concession stand workers and janitors.
Kimberly Anderson used to work for the state of California helping others find jobs. For six months she's been trying to find one for herself. She applied for a food service job at the ballpark.
"It's been hard facing that I am going out to the same jobs I would send other people to," Anderson says. "But, you know, money is green."
But the competition for jobs is fierce, Tracy reports. In California, 1.9 million people are now unemployed, that's one out of every 10 workers. That's more than the populations of San Francisco, Boston and Minneapolis combined.
At a job fair in New York Thursday, laid off investment banker Ira Weiner was one of 3,700 people looking for work.
"Hopefully something can stick, whether it's to bridge the transition to your next job or maybe it's your new career - who knows?" Weiner said.
Economists say jobs are shifting to growth industries such as health care and energy.
"Today workers have to be more flexible - ready and willing to retrain themselves - because the economy and the jobs that are available are changing very rapidly," says Jerry Nickelsburg, an economist at UCLA
Kimberly Anderson lost her house to unemployment, Tracy reports. She just wants to find a future.
"It's not what I envisioned for myself, but I need to make the best of what is," she says.
These days, that's a job in itself.
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