WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- The slow U.S. economic pickup is becoming known as the jobless recovery.
Even the recovery itself remains questionable as the economic indicators swing back and forth between bullish to bearish. This week the key numbers for both factory activity and construction work came in stagnant after expectations they would report economic expansion.
On Thursday the closely watched monthly employment report will be issued at 8:30 a.m., with the expectation for June among Wall Street analysts that unemployment will remain at its nine-year high of around 6 percent or more.
According to the Department of Labor, there are currently around nine million persons who are unemployed in the United States.
Previously, UPI reported on Nancy Miller, a San Francisco native, who was laid off as a telecom project manager at the MCI division of WorldCom Inc in July of last year. She was subsequently laid off last Wednesday from yet another telecom position after being unemployed for nine months.
In the second part of UPI's three unemployment series, UPI is reporting on Alexandria, Va., sisters Lori and Lisa Porcher who have been unemployed since last year and have been doing temporary work to make ends meet.
Lori Porcher, 40, was working in advertising as an accounts manager before she lost her job. She has been unemployed now for close to 11 months.
Her sister Lisa, 36, had been working as an operations manager for an e-learning company when she was laid off. Lisa has now been out of work for almost 10 months.
Lisa was laid off as part of her company being bought out by a competitor.
Having recently finished a Masters in Information Systems before her layoff, Lisa said she now wonders if her higher degree is "worth anything in light of the economy."
Lori said her layoff from advertising was "a combination of a few things, for one the economy impacted our clients, and the agency cut back on staffing. I was part of the third round of layoffs."
Now she finds herself "trying to be flexible as possible."
Lori is currently enrolled in a 10-week real estate program, and does temporary work. Her temporary work often does not even fill up a 40 hour work week.
Lisa said that it was "frustrating" doing temporary work, "while trying to find something in IT, which is my career."
Both sisters said they were finding it hard to make ends meet.
Lori noted that money is a problem as her current earnings are nowhere near the salary she was making. she added that what she earns doing temporary work is even less than the unemployment benefits she received until about two months ago.
While on unemployment benefits, Lori was "really dedicating my time to the job search, but nothing really came out of that." She was going to job fairs, and networking.
"Job fairs I typically shy away from because there's usually not a lot of (job) representatives for advertising."
Lori now relies mostly on word of mouth or networking, she said.
Of the economic track record of Congress and the Bush administration, Lori said "I definitely feel more could be done (by the government in dealing with unemployment).
Because of their layoffs, both Lori and Lisa had to move to save money. While they were in the same Alexandria apartment building before, they are now roommates.
Lori has had to defer payments, and at times alternates paying her bills each month.
In addition to sharing rent with her sister, Lori finds herself tightening the belt in other ways.
"I used to enjoy traveling and that's something I've definitely had to cut back on," Lori said. "Something as simple as dry cleaning, that gets pretty expensive."
Her family has a reunion in a different city every year, and this year Lori said "I don't know if I can make it."
She added, "It's pretty disappointing."
Even the basics of getting to and from work worry her. "I'm definitely taking it one day at a time. Now I'm carefully budgeting what I can afford to do, when before I was more carefree."
Because she has 15 years of experience in advertising, Lori said she has been very surprised at how difficult it has been to find work. She was laid off once before and found a new job within three to five months.
But she added, "I am optimistic. That's why I'm being flexible and searching out other opportunities."
Lori said the key to being unemployed in this economy is to "be flexible and don't be afraid to be humble."
"Right now I'm doing this (temporary work) to survive and that's just barely," Lori said. "There is the factor of uncertainty. I just hope that something will turn around quickly. I can't help but be optimistic. I don't know what other options I have."
(Reported with correspondent Jennifer Mehigan)
(UPI will feature profiles of average unemployed Americans from Tuesday through Thursday this week when the U.S. Labor Department reports the monthly unemployment number.)
