This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 27, 2008 - Kiffin Butz hit snooze again.
The February cold outside wasn't anything to open her eyes for, but news from the day before was. Even in waking, Butz was ecstatic.
As an assistant buyer at Macy's, she'd just gotten a promotion. That day, she IM'ed her boyfriend, who worked in the I.T. department. She called her mom in Belleville, and the two met for dinner. Butz treated.
At 25, out of college with three job offers and a steady jog forward in her three-year career at Macy's, her diligence was paying off.
Butz got up, finally, to the happy licks of her dog Ollie. She sipped a cup of coffee while getting ready, then started her commute into the city, flipping channels through the drone of talk radio.
She walked into the Macy's building and took the elevator to the 10th floor. When she stepped out of the elevator and around the corner into her office, Butz instantly knew something was going on. Nervous coworkers whispered between cubicles. There was going to be a meeting, they told her.
No one knew why.
THREE'S A CHARM
At Miami University in Ohio, Butz trained for her job search like it was a marathon.
The business/marketing major made lists, frequented the career center, kept binders full of the jobs she was interested in, what they were looking for and how to answer their questions. She had mock interviews videotaped so she could watch her responses. She spoke with her hands a lot, she noticed. She studied and talked with her professors.
And she enjoyed the interview process, she was good at it, always outgoing and poised. By her third or fourth, Butz knew she was nailing them.
By the early fall of her senior year, the Chi Omega girl had three job offers -- one with Sears in Chicago, one with Macy's in Atlanta, and one with Famous-Barr in St. Louis.
The last one put the most on the table, but it wasn't just a matter of money. Even though Butz was from Belleville, St. Louis felt like home. She took the job and planned for her first day in August.
Then, on a late fall morning, she received an e-mail from the head of recruiting at Famous. I know you're a busy person, the e-mail said, but we need to talk. Attached was a press release. Macy's was buying Famous-Barr's parent company, May.
Butz headed to her accounting class in a panic. Do I have a job? she kept asking.
She did, she found out. But she moved her start date up to June.
"I wanted in."
A DISSOLVING DREAM
The rumor, that winter morning that had started so well and was going so wrong, was that a division in another part of the country was going to be dissolved. How could they take on more work?, everyone wondered. Is someone getting laid off?
Soon, Butz stood in line with her co-workers waiting to board the elevator. She got off at the 21st floor and stepped into a room filled with chairs. The seats were full, so she stood against the wall.
Bill McNamara, the CEO of Macy's Midwest, stepped before the crowd. Macy's was rolling out a new strategy, he said. Three divisions would be dissolved. He began naming them. The Northwest division. The North division.
"And the last one he named was us."
More than 300 people drew in their breath at once.
Butz couldn't believe this was happening. When it was over, she saw her boyfriend, Jeff Dame, who worked in I.T. They'd mentioned people could apply for work at Macy's South in Atlanta. Was Dame going to?
No, he told Butz. They'd stay together in St. Louis. They'd find other jobs.
She hurried back to her cube. All around, people were on the phone. She'd have to find another job, she thought, and here was her competition. She didn't want to fall behind.
Butz called her mom. You're kidding me, her mom said. You just got a promotion.
EVERYTHING RIGHT
Four binders sit neatly stacked in her home office now. They're filled with calendars, to-do lists, contact sheets, jobs she's applied for, records of conversations with prospective employers, details from follow ups. For every job she found online, Butz printed out the posting.
She's applied for or made contacts with people at 72 jobs so far.
"I've reworked my resume like six ways from Sunday," she says. She plans on doing so again.
And nothing.
Two interviews. No offers.
The people at Right Management, which provided seminars and training for displaced workers from Macy's, have told Butz she's doing everything right. They don't know why she hasn't found work yet. Neither does she, and the frustration simmers for someone used to getting far through hard work. Alongside it is a little disbelief.
"I never thought at 25 years old, I'd be collecting unemployment," she says.
Butz pays attention to the news. She knows the economy's in trouble. "I can't say I've used the economy for an excuse for not having a job," she says. "I don't have control over that excuse, I think."
But it does have control over her situation, and those like her. And there are a lot of them.
"You know, it's bad. It's real bad," says Gene Gorden, executive director of workforce development with St. Louis County. "We're just having more layoffs than ever before."
In the second quarter of 2008, the country experienced 1,534 mass layoffs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That affected 299,886 workers. In Missouri, 2008 has brought more mass layoffs, meaning layoffs of 50 people or more, than since 2002. In August 2007, 941 laid-off Missouri workers filed for unemployment benefits; this past August, the number was 1,490.
In St. Louis, people have been laid off from Chrysler, Ford, Macy's and Western Union most recently. And now, Gorden sees white collar workers among those numbers.
According to the AFL-CIO, 525,000 white collar jobs have been lost to outsourcing. The biggest problem for white collar workers now, however, isn't outsourcing but the economy, says Bob Soutier, president of St. Louis Labor Council, AFL-CIO of Greater St. Louis.
And mass layoffs don't affect only those laid off, he says. "When any job shuts down, there's an impact on the economy. At first, it's an impact locally." People cut their spending, they don't make big purchases, and if they're not earning wages, they're not paying taxes. "So then the government's hurt," he says. "It's a scary thing."
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group, 8.8 million unemployed were looking for work in July, but there were only 3.4 million job openings.
So far, Butz has finished 146 hours at the University of Missouri-St. Louis on classes in Excel, Adobe Illustrator and other software programs.
Nationally, the majority of people laid off do find work again. According to the BLS, 67 percent found reemployment in a 2008 survey. That number was lower, however, than the 2006 survey, which found 70 percent of displaced workers back in the workforce.
While Butz would take another job in retail, she's nervous about these companies. She's applied to be a substitute teacher. And now, she's considering event planning and has worked on a few. The experience makes it worthwhile, she says, even if the money doesn't. Maybe she'll start her own company.
Butz was making between $40,000 and $55,000 at Macy's, and got three months severance. She's never been a frivolous spender, she says, but is watching her money closely now. A chunk of it goes to continue her health insurance through COBRA.
She collects unemployment each week, $288 after taxes. That lasts for a total of six months. She's on her sixth. Unemployment benefits were extended by 13 weeks, thanks to recently passed federal legislation.
For a few months, Dame, her boyfriend, was around all day, also looking for work. They shared tips, fit in a game of tennis and understood each other's frustrations. In August, he started a new job.
RUN, RUN
Her work, now, is finding work. The binders, to-do lists and calendars help with that, as does her upbeat persistence.
But whether Butz likes it or not, the economy is a factor. And, Gorden says, it's going to take patience.
"The reality of it is it's gonna take time to find that job," he says.
But don't say that to Butz. She knows. Before, she set the pace and kept her eyes on the hurdles ahead. Now, she's not even in the race. But she does have one big goal.
"Working," Butz laughs. "That's a good one."
In the meantime, she joined a gym and works out three times a week. "I don't want to feel like a complete waste of space," she says. Though she's slim and a high school varsity tennis player, Butz has always hated running. She could never finish a mile.
Until now.
"And yesterday," she says, "I ran two."
Kristen Hare is a freelance writer in Lake St. Louis.