Snipped this off my banks web portal page:
Source: The NandoTimes
Unemployed tech workers meet for support
By JUSTIN POPE, AP Business Writer
WESTBORO, Mass. (AP) - It's part job fair, part support group for unemployed tech workers. And with 50 unemployed newcomers joining each week, 495 Networking Support Group is - to the distress of its members - one of the fastest-growing ventures around.
"This is one of the best groups I've ever been associated with," said Jason Traiger, 60, who has been job hunting since he was laid off eight months ago. "I look forward to coming every week. And I look forward to the day I don't have to come."
When 495NSG (named for Interstate 495, a Boston ring road and high-tech corridor) was founded in 2001, 345,000 were employed in Massachusetts' high technology sector, according to state figures. Since then, the sector has shed more than 30,000 jobs, including 15,000 in greater Boston.
Networking groups have sprouted around the country, but 495NSG appears to be one of the bigger ones. More than 1,000 members pay $10 per month, which allows them to post resumes on the group's Web database and attend weekly sessions to socialize and gather advice on everything from health insurance to interviewing techniques.
The group is also looking to lobby for its interests. It asked legislators attending its Thursday session at a Westboro synagogue to consider more concerted government action, including extending unemployment benefits and offering tax breaks to companies that rehire workers.
Group members say the dispiriting search for work is tempered by support from those in the same situation.
"It gave me a feeling of hope," said Carole Fuller, who has been out of work for two years and attends events with her husband, Bob, who is also jobless. "It got me up off the floor. It gave me the incentive to go out and beat the bushes, get my resume out there."
Still, optimism is in short supply. Only a handful of club "alumni" have found full-time work. Many said their hundreds of resumes had yielded only a handful of interviews. Rare now is the technology job that does not attract hundreds of qualified applicants.
"I would absolutely take the first thing that comes up," said Saul Marcus, 49, of Newton, Mass., who has lost two jobs in the data storage industry in two years.
Most of the group's members are in their 40s or older, and many say they face another obstacle: tacit but pervasive age discrimination.
"When I go into an interview they always say, 'We want somebody who fits into the group,'" said Pam Fleetman, 55, of Acton, jobless since being laid off from a software company six months ago. "When they say they want somebody who fits in, you know that's code for somebody who's young."
Organizers acknowledge that, with Massachusetts facing a potential $3 billion budget deficit next year, the only realistic source of help is the federal government. President Bush has proposed spending $3.6 billion over two years for states to create "re-employment accounts" of up to $3,000 that could be used to help defray the costs of looking for work, including job training, transportation and child care.
"The state can't afford that kind of policy," said state Rep. Stephen LeDuc, D-Marlboro. But, he said, Massachusetts must take unemployment assistance "to the next level."
Few were happy to be looking for work, but a surprising number said the experience had made them stronger.
"Even though it sounds crazy, I'm glad this happened to me," said Fidel Camero, who has worked as a department store clerk and car salesman for a third of his salary as director of engineering at Cayman Systems, a broadband networking firm in Billerica, Mass. "It feels like I'm a real person. I can talk to the president or the guy who sweeps the floors."