Job search agency sees customers double

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - The state's jobless rate is at a 16-year high: 9.3 percent. But it doesn't include Carmen Harper.

She lost her job just as the state released that statistic.

"Just yesterday," Harper told 24 Hour News 8. She was working at an auto parts supplier. Now Harper is worried about having no income -- worried about her son James. "I'm a single mother," she said.

And Thursday, she was among the hundreds who stopped by the Michigan Works office at Leonard Street and Ball Avenue NE. Programs Manager Maureen Downer says based on the last two available months of data, customer visits have doubled year-to-year at the agency's Kent County centers.

"I'm trying to see if I can get a part time job or anything that can help me," Harper said.

"It's been very busy," Downer told 24 Hour News 8. "I think people are more nervous. They have less hope about finding work. Finding a job is more of a challenge. But we also see a lot more interest in terms of job training."

Not everyone walking through the doors is jobless. But Mike Johnson is worried he will be.

"I just come up here to sort of see what's out there, what's available on the market right now," Johnson said in an interview.

He has 15 years experience in car sales. Johnson is selling high-end cars now and fears there won't be enough work for him in the months ahead.

"Gas is back down which makes it a lot easier to be able to sell cars but people are still worried things are going to turn right back around, gas is going to shoot up almost to four dollars a gallon," he said.

Back in 1992 -- the last time Michigan's unemployment rate was this high -- Johnson was pouring concrete walls for a construction firm. He says although the jobless rate was comparable, the job market seemed much stronger to him.

Sixteen years later, he thinks the situation might be better in North Carolina -- where he used to live. And if he doesn't find something new in a few months?

"Maybe I'm going to head back down there," Johnson said.