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Politics & Government

Anemic Jobs Numbers Hit Home

Fairfield County business leaders and experts say a national slowdown in June is being felt around the area.

The government delivered unwelcome news today on the jobs front, and for lower Fairfield County, Conn., the picture is becoming ever more grim.

"It's like a beast that seemed to go into hibernation but it keeps peeking its head out, said Joe Carbone, president of Workplace, Inc., a Bridgeport nonprofit organization that assists 23 towns in the region with job placements.

"It's almost like a hangover that won't go away," he said of the "very, very disappointing" news that the U.S. economy added the fewest jobs last month in more than a year and companies created only 18,000 new jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a fraction of what leading economists were predicting.

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Unemployment numbers for states, towns and regions for June will not be available until mid-July, Carbone said, but lower Fairfield County is expected to mirror the national picture.

Unemployment here was stable at 3 to 4 percent for years, but has dramatically risen to a steady 8.7 percent recently, he said.

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In the Fairfield County towns along the coast from Stratford to Greenwich, there are 35,000 unemployed who collect unemployment insurance and an estimated 15,000 others who are under-employed (working part-time when they need to work full-time) or unemployed but not collecting unemployment insurance, Carbone said. In May, the rate was 9.1 per cent unemployed, consistent with the national average.

Distress in the financial industry has had an especially hard-hitting effect in the region, hurting not only high-income executives but having a multiplier effect on down the payscale to affecting lower-pay workers who benefit from the largesse of the wealthy, said Edward J. Musante, president of the six-town Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce. The organization represents Norwalk, Darien, New Canaan, Weston, Westport and Wilton.

"When the highly-paid are laid off, it hurts everyone," he said.

Mikael Hervé of Wilton, a mechanical engineer with an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago, doesn't have to be told.

Hervé resigned from an executive job with an Chicago auto parts supplier and moved into the finanncial industry in New York City, and was laid off last November.

With a wife and two young children to support, his household is "bleeding cash."

But Hervé can't give up, he said. These days, he's pounding the pavement as a private business consultant, pursuing a longtime goal—the day he can head his own investment company.

[Editor's Note: This article was updated with accurate education and job history information for Mikael Hervé.]

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