Unemployed and looking: Laid-off workers in Utah face job hunting in a tough economy

SALT LAKE CITY — Before dawn and hours ahead of the lunchtime rush, Tom Hollister can be found reinventing himself in the kitchen of his west-side strip mall delicatessen.

The owner of the Rose Canyon Deli must prep and cook a hunk of roast beef, mix tuna and chicken salads, and combine chicken and rice into a lip-smacking soup.

Long days are familiar for him, but the work is far removed from the career path he started on fresh out of high school, when he signed on in the plating shop of then defense contractor E-Systems, which became Raytheon, which in turn became Moog Aircraft Group, part of multinational Moog Inc.

Hollister was 28 years into that career as a hydraulics expert when the company told him and a couple hundred other Utah-based employees that their work would end and the jobs would be transferred to company plants in the Philippines or California. He left the company May 14.

Moog's not alone. Blame a sour economy, blame the lure of cheaper labor overseas, blame cost-cutting or whatever else you want. Layoffs in this recession have become a fact of life. By June's end, Utah's unemployment rate was 7.2 percent, with nearly 100,000 people out of work. That doesn't count those who have run out of benefits or stopped looking.

Nationally, unemployment stands at 9.5 percent. Add in those so discouraged they've stopped hunting for jobs and the numbers soar to 9 percent in Utah and 11 percent nationwide. Some 1.2 million non-seasonally adjusted Americans fell into this category in July, up 389,000 from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As economists point to hopeful signs that the worst of the recession is over, they don't hold employment figures up as proof. High unemployment and the low spending that goes with it are expected to continue through 2010, says Mark Knold, chief economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services. Some economists say it will be at least 2012 before things turn around.

Moog (pronounced MOHG) folks call being laid off getting "the boot." And while in some companies it may be sudden and unexpected, Moog employees were told in September 2009 that they'd lose their jobs, the result of declining air travel with fewer people flying the Boeing planes whose flight systems and components Moog refurbishes and services.