Statistics, surveys highlight the difficulties for unemployed

Carol Ann Bowman transferred from Phoenix to Southern Nevada four years ago when her employer, HDR Inc., was hired by Pardee Homes of Nevada to design and build water and wastewater treatment facilities at Coyote Springs, a master-planned community under development 50 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But when Southern Nevada's housing market crashed, Coyote Springs delayed groundbreaking on its homes, basically closing down the HDR project. In October 2009, Bowman joined the growing ranks of unemployed Nevada residents.

While the national employment rate in September sat at just under 10 percent, Nevada's jobless rate remained the highest among the 50 states at 14.4 percent. In Las Vegas, the rate was 15 percent, setting a new all-time high for the state's largest labor market. Construction, along with leisure and hospitality, continues to be the biggest job loser in the state, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.

Last month, the Las Vegas Review-Journal conducted an informal survey both on its Jobseeker website and at a career fair that the newspaper sponsored Oct. 19. Bowman was one of 1,410 people who filled out the survey.

The respondents were pretty evenly split between men and women. Of those currently unemployed, 21 percent had been without work for more than one year, while 13 percent had been unemployed for more than two years.

Bowman is in the majority of respondents who are over the age of 41 (66 percent), and, at age 66, she is part of a significant shift in the labor force.

"The recession has devastated household wealth in Nevada, including the retirement accounts of older workers, pushing many of them back into the labor force or making them work longer than expected," said Bill Anderson, chief economist for the Nevada DETR. "Many of these workers are competing for jobs traditionally filled by younger workers."

Although Bowman filed for Social Security after her layoff, the benefits don't cover the mortgage on her house, which she bought at the peak of the housing bubble.

"I am so underwater on my house, and Wells Fargo refuses to even think of modification or refinance as I am not in arrears and have a good credit score," she said. The mortgage is her only debt, said Bowman, who owns a car and pays off her credit card every month.

"I only need about $600 to $700 more each month to stay off the homeless list," she said.

Currently, Bowman spends more than 21 hours a week looking for work, which is in line with a quarter of the R-J survey participants, and like 30 percent of respondents, she applies daily to positions that she would not normally find interesting.

"I have been applying for administrative, buyer, purchasing, full time, part time, clerk, inventory -- nearly anything," said Bowman, who was formerly an administrative coordinator at HDR. "I do apply for field coordinator jobs and hope to interview for the Bechtel solar facility at Primm."

Bechtel has partnered with BrightSource Energy to built the largest solar thermal project in the world in the Mojave Desert, just south of the Nevada border. The project broke ground late last month. During its three years of construction, the Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System will employ as many as 1,000 laborers and will create an estimated 8,000 jobs at completion.

In the meantime, Bowman's main focus (along with 33 percent of survey respondents) is developing new skills to enhance her employment profile.

"I have been taking real estate classes and should be taking my exam soon," Bowman said.

She is also looking at becoming a tarot card reader, if she can afford the business license, and volunteers for the North Las Vegas Police Citizens Academy.

Like 40 percent of the respondents in the R-J survey, Bowman has a college degree; she received an associate degree in paralegal studies from the American Institute in Phoenix. But many older adults are now returning to school to obtain new skills that will benefit them in the changing economy.

"The average age of students is 35 years old," said Kathy Gamboa, territory vice president and campus director for University of Phoenix--Las Vegas. "These adults learners are generally established in their career and family and are seeking to add to their skill sets and be a resource for employers in Nevada. About 60 percent of new students are female and 40 percent are male."

According to Gamboa, enrollment has continually grown at the four campuses and learning centers in Southern Nevada over the past two years to nearly 6,000 students. Other institutions are experiencing the same trend.

Both the College of Southern Nevada and Nevada State College are reporting record enrollment numbers this fall, although the count won't be official until the end of the semester. CSN's enrollment has nearly tripled in 20 years, while NSC has averaged 16 percent growth since it opened in 2002.

But state budget cuts may make it difficult for people seeking higher education at public-funded schools. CSN is out of space and money to hire new teachers. Many students are being turned away from popular core classes, which fill up as soon as they are offered.

In an effort to serve its students better, the college began offering late-night core classes at its West Charleston campus last spring. The experiment was so successful, that offerings -- mostly classes such as English, math, biology and philosophy -- doubled this fall.

Among the different educational institutions of the Nevada System of Higher Education, the largest 2009 budget cuts by the state Legislature were for Nevada State College at 24.1 percent. When the Legislature convenes in February, the budget deficit will be even worse that it was two year ago, and there's talk that NSC could be closed down.

Enrollment at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has dipped 3 percent from last fall after it had to eliminate some departments earlier this year because of budget cuts. Now, UNLV is looking at increasing the fees for upper level nursing, architecture and physical therapy programs. Differential tuition is used by many universities nationwide to offset costs for high-demand, high-cost programs.

But while public institutions are suffering in the recession, private schools are booming. Schools such as the University of Phoenix--Las Vegas, Regis University, National University, Touro University Nevada, University of Southern Nevada and DeVry University have the means to add programs to meet the demand of the local community.

"As a private institution, we have the ability to evolve our programs quickly to meet the needs of our communities and businesses," said University of Phoenix's Gamboa. "To address the past two years of growth in the viability of green technologies, we now have a bachelor's program in green and sustainable management.

"This is a direct result of our need to be responsible to communities in which we serve, specifically Nevada," she said.

Many returning students are looking at where the jobs are going to be in upcoming years and taking classes accordingly. And according to the U.S. Department of Labor, those jobs are going to be in the health care industry.

Of the 20 fastest growing occupations in the economy, half are related to health care. This rapid growth is due in large part to the aging of the baby-boom generation, which will require more medical care.

A number of the region's private schools specialize in training health professionals.

The University of Southern Nevada began as the Nevada College of Pharmacy in 2001. Today, USN has four colleges (pharmacy, nursing, dental medicine and MBA) and more than 900 students.

Touro University Nevada is becoming recognized as an outstanding health science center. The campus consists of two colleges, the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the College of Health and Human Services.

Private colleges often cater to busy adults, offering online, evening and weekend classes. However, they tend to be more expensive than their public counterparts.

Quality Technical Training Center offers programs for another occupation destined to be in demand in the coming years. Its programs are designed to train technicians to diagnose, service and repair heating, cooling and refrigeration systems.

According to the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook: "Employment of heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers is projected to increase 28 percent during the 2008-'18 decade, much faster than the average for all occupations."

One of the reasons for the high growth, according to the handbook, is: "Residential HVACR (heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration) systems generally need replacement after 10 to 15 years; the large number of homes built in recent years will enter this replacement time frame by 2018.

Quality Technical Training Center has been in business for 17 years. According to School Director Art Leonard, it trains about 300 students a year, up to 70 at one time. He hasn't seen much of an increase in enrollment since the recession hit Las Vegas.

"Our enrollment and placement usually remains pretty steady," Leonard said. "But what we are seeing is the way students are funding themselves has changed. A lot of them used to try to get loans, but there have been so many out of work, they're tending to get state and federal funding."

Leonard speculated that when people are looking at employment opportunities, they don't really consider the HVACR industry.

"When you think of heating and air conditioning, everyone thinks of the ones who come to your house. ... Yet our graduates find jobs at malls, hospitals, schools and airlines. Until you walk in the door and look at the industry you don't realize that it's so vast and that the employment opportunities are tremendous," he said.

Certification training usually takes three months, and, although Quality Technical Training Center doesn't offer a placement center, it helps graduates find employers who are hiring and posts job opportunities.

And the success rate for employment is high for graduates of the program.

"Seventy-five percent of our graduates work, however, I tell people it's 100 percent for those who want to find a job," Leonard said. "For anybody who is really serious and puts the effort into school and the effort into looking for work, there are always openings."

The local starting salary is $10 to $20 an hour, but industries such as the school district and hotel-casino pay more than residential. Leonard says there are technicians making more than $100,000 a year.

Quality Technical Training Center is certified by the Veterans Administration, which pays for training or retraining of veterans.