Every day for more than a year, Gerald Lanier has slipped on his Lowe's apron for his regular shift as a customer service associate at the company's North Raleigh hardware store.
Displaced by the recession, this former IBM software engineer now helps do-it-yourselfers select screws and pick plywood. He stocks shelves and loads lumber. He cheerfully greets customers at the door.
Lanier, 51, has joined the ranks of the underemployed. Cast adrift in a becalmed economy, these former programmers, engineers and managers now work in grocery stores, retail chains, bookstores and call centers. The pay is meager, and the work is usually unrelated to their careers and education. Experts say many of these professionals may never fully recover economically.
It has been a surreal fall from grace for these white-collar workers, many of whom were recently breaking the $100,000-a-year salary barrier. In a lot of ways, the low-skill work they are taking doesn't feel much different from the summer jobs they took as students.
"I went from a big office window up with the VPs and whatnot, and now I have a 12-inch-by-12-inch locker and a red vest," Lanier said. "This is the first hourly job I've been on since high school. You're basically starting over - you're just 30 years older."
The underemployed aren't included in the commonly cited jobless statistic that shows a 9.7 percent jobless rate in North Carolina.
The broadest available jobless figure from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics includes discouraged workers who have given up looking, and underemployed people who work part time. This figure is infrequently cited but shows that North Carolina's jobless rate reached 17.8 percent over the past year - an all-time high.
By this economic measure, more than 275,000 people are underemployed in North Carolina, and nearly 8.9 million in the United States. But even that broadest measure doesn't count the population of workers like Lanier, because it narrowly defines underemployed as wanting full-time work but working part time for economic reasons.
A number of economic measures, however, suggest that those who see themselves as underemployed - generally people whose pay and status have plummeted - are a growing sector in the nation's economy. One clue is in the length of time that people are out of work, an indication of how hard it is to find a job.
Earlier this year, 46 percent of those who were laid off in this country had been out of work at least six months, a figure that smashes the previous record of 26 percent set in 1983. Most vulnerable to long-term unemployment are people 45 and older, and those laid off from managerial, professional and office occupations, according to BLS data.
More than half of people who find work after layoffs say they are overqualified, even though some also say they are grateful for the work, according to a study issued this month by the Pew Research Center in Washington.
Other studies show that job loss leads to a 20 percent reduction in future earnings. At the same time, this country's job growth is concentrated in low- to mid-wage industries, like retail sales, cashiers and food prep.
"These are white-collar recessions," James Johnson Jr., a UNC-Chapel Hill business professor, said about the nation's last three economic downturns. "Substantial downward mobility is manifesting itself in the economy. This has something to do with the globalization of white-collar jobs."
Lost generation
Don Gilman used to make $120,000 a year with a two-year associate's degree in computer science as a supervisor at Quintiles, the Durham drug research company. After being laid off in 2005, he turned to contracting, consulting and a stint as a chief information officer of a software startup.
Most of that time, Gilman said, he managed to find a source of income, and had to collect unemployment checks for only three weeks.
Then all work dried up in fall 2008, and the bills started piling up. So Gilman, 62, went into the house-cleaning business with his wife. The couple makes less than $50,000 a year cleaning homes for 15 regular customers at a fee of $90 to $120 per home, he said.
Gilman continues networking and looking for computer jobs, even though his hopes are fading.
"This may be my career," Gilman said. "I feel because of my age and because of my history, I'm limited in what I can find."
Some analysts say the underemployment trend is a sign of deeper problems in the economy, analogous to idled equipment and machinery, and an indication of hidden productivity losses.
"You're going to have the world's smartest grocery store checkout clerk," said Rich Morin, senior editor for demographics and social trends at the Pew Research Center. "At the same time, that's a lot of talent and education down the drain. Work will still get done, but it won't be done by the right people."
Scraping by
Buddy Speight used to make nearly $90,000 a year at Nortel Networks in Research Triangle Park until the telecommunications company laid him off in 2002. He landed at Tekelec, the Morrisville telecommunications equipment maker, making as much as $60,000 a year as a contractor doing technical writing and documentation. Then he was laid off in October 2008.
Speight, 60, had been getting by on about $450 a week in unemployment checks and odd jobs. All that changed when he was offered a job: the midnight shift at a customer support call center in Raleigh. Under federal law, he couldn't turn down a job offer and continue collecting unemployment, so he showed up for the training sessions and hoped to make the best of the $288-a-week gig.
"I was talking to VPs and handling $1 million products," he said of his previous jobs. "And now here I am being monitored for a $9-an-hour [call center] job."
After three weeks, Speight quit the call center. He decided to focus instead on developing his tutoring business, in which he teaches about half a dozen students in such subjects as GED test preparation and website development.
Speight lacks a college degree. He has no income, no savings and no retirement benefits. He also has no bills, as a result of recently moving in with a relative in Raleigh. For spending money, he has been selling off his possessions at flea markets, doing home repair and tutoring.
"I'm running out of physical resources," Speight said. "My objective is to have nothing and to be free and flexible. If you have possessions, then you're tied to where you are."
Phantom population
Lanier's pay dropped from about $70 an hour at IBM to $13 an hour at Lowe's. He joined IBM in 2001 and left the company in 2006 for a job as system configurator at a tool company in Apex. He was laid off in November 2008 but was confident he would be re-hired at IBM after he had four interviews with his former employer.
As job prospects dried up, Lowe's moved Lanier from part time to full time, and then put the engineer through a management training course. But a promotion to a zone manager would require an open slot at a Lowe's within driving distance.
Even with his day job in customer service, Lanier has not yet given up on resurrecting his high-tech career. He is spending about $20,000 on night courses for Microsoft and Cisco certification.
"When you see your buddies from IBM come through and you're standing there with your red vest and running the cash register, it's hard to grin," Lanier said.
