NEW YORK, April 15 (JTA) — Stanley Epstein once pulled in more than $60,000 from his small accounting outfit in Los Angeles. But business dried up about a year-and-a-half ago as his clients opted to cut their costs by reducing his services and buying accounting software. “I’ve been at this quite a while, and I haven’t even had a bite yet,” the 56-year-old Epstein said of his quest to find new work ever since. “There are really too few positions to go around.” Surviving on a meager income from what’s left of his business — under $500 a month from one remaining client — Epstein has relied on loans from friends and family. Now he’s considering jobs in retail — the same ones that put him through college more than 30 years ago — just to get by. Epstein, one of many Jews engulfed in the two-year job slump that has saddled the country, is also one of many who has turned to Jewish social-service agencies for help. Though the numbers of the Jewish unemployed are not documented, Jewish vocational services across the country have seen a huge increase in clients seeking job counseling. And Jewish social-service agencies are finding themselves inundated with new demands, from requests for psychological counseling to assistance for basic needs. But the agencies are facing a double challenge — serving a larger, higher-skilled clientele at the same time that government funding has been slashed. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, more than 2 million jobs were lost in the last two years. That amounts to a greater job loss than any experienced during the recession of the early 1990s, when not much more than 1 million jobs were ever cut. The recent release of U.S. unemployment figures — 108,000 jobs were cut in March — signaled the continuing trend. Unemployment hovers at 5.8 percent, where it has essentially been since November 2001. That percentage does not account for the reported rise of people no longer looking for work. Many of the newly unemployed are highly skilled and formerly high- income earners. “Now you’re seeing high-level, former six-figure earners, many who were former donors and employers of ours walking through our doors,” said Vivian Seigel, chief executive officer of L.A.’s Jewish Vocational Service. But with labor supply outpacing demand, the jobless face long stretches of scouting for work. “It’s a dreary state right now,” said Genie Cohen, executive director of the International Association of Jewish Vocational Services in Philadelphia, whose agencies serve both Jews and non-Jews. Although Cohen could not quantify the impact of the economy on the Jewish community, she summed up what is being reported everywhere: “Caseloads are higher than in the past.” In addition to the challenge of serving this new kind of client, many Jewish agencies face budget cuts from a significant source of revenue, the state and federal government. “States are facing an unprecedented budget crisis” with the largest deficits since the Great Depression, said Diana Aviv, vice president for public policy of the United Jewish Communities, the umbrella of the federation movement in Washington, D.C. Aviv ascribed the problem to the poor economy, the failure of states to plan “rainy-day funds” and rocketing health care costs. With federal relief unlikely and states forced to cut their budgets, she said, “the outlook is not likely to improve over the next 10 years.” The impact on Jewish social-service agencies is severe. In Los Angeles, for example, Seigel said her vocational agency’s $5.5 million budget could face as much as a $750,000 cut from the state. California suffers the largest state budget deficit in the country — nearly $35 billion — and one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, due, in part, to the demise of the high-tech industry and an energy crisis. What that means for Jewish vocational agencies, Cohen said, is that “while dollars are going down, the need for services continues to increase.” “But with every threat comes opportunities, and so maybe we’ll look at new ways to secure funding and find new solutions,” she said. Indeed, Jewish social-service agencies are devising new approaches to aid their clients. In several cities, including Los Angeles and Baltimore, Jewish vocational agencies have launched networking programs for previously high-income earners. In Los Angeles, a “Breakfast with a CEO series” brings together unemployed professionals with area company executives. “Somebody at that kind of salary range is not going to open up the L.A. Times and find a job,” Seigel said. “They’re going to find it through contacts.” The strain on the agencies is taking its toll on — and in some cases, scaring away — the clients. In Los Angeles, Seigel said, waiting lists show that “we just aren’t able to handle the volume.” In New York, one unemployed man said he is not turning to social-service agencies because he feels he’ll get “lost in the shuffle.” To go to an agency and “get in line with 50 people” feels “like getting a driver’s license,” said the man, who asked that his name not be used because he was too embarrassed about not having a job. Out of work for a year since he lost his job in the high-tech industry, he said he has been “basically burning up all my assets” to support himself; his wife, who does not work outside the home; and his elementary school-aged daughter. His entire savings are now depleted, he said, but he’s trying to be optimistic about the networking he is doing. “I’m sticking with the game plan,” he said. The “next person I talk to could be the one.” For many, the painstaking process of finding a job is taking a mental toll as well. Career counselors note the emotional instability and depression that accompanies joblessness. And several Jewish vocational agencies offer psychological counseling in addition to job support and training. “I feel such embarrassment, that’s the worst part,” said Epstein, the California accountant. “As you go through this process, one begins to doubt one’s own ability.”. Jewish agencies are feeling similarly impotent. “We run out of what we can do for them, but we keep trying,” said Jennie Rothschild, executive director of Career Center at Jewish Vocational Service in Baltimore. Rothschild noted a “speed networking” event her agency devised that brought together unemployed individuals with 15 of the agency’s board members. She said the clients, who switched partners every 15 minutes with the ding of a cowbell, felt the “community was concerned about their plight.” But even those who are getting jobs, she said, “are not getting necessarily the jobs they lost.” Gail Magaliff, chief operating officer of New York’s FEGS Health and Human Services System, the largest health and human-services nonprofit in the country, said the climate is tough. People “don’t want to go to another networking seminar,” she said, noting the fragility of the unemployed. “They just want a job.” The problem is, she said, “there are just no jobs to choose from.”
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