Oh three. Oh no.

Based on preliminary unemployment numbers, that may be the slogan for job hunters across Kansas in 2003.

Officials with the Kansas Department of Human Resources reported last week December was the busiest month in history for Kansans filing new unemployment claims.

For the month, 26,672 people filed new claims, with the bulk of those coming during the last week of the year, said Orval Weber, a researcher with the department’s Labor Market Information Division.

The last time such monthly numbers were seen was January 1983, when Kansas was mired in a deep recession. During that month, 25,593 people filed new unemployment claims.

That’s not good news for Curtis Hill, Lawrence, who has been looking for work for four months since he lost his job with a Lawrence remodeling company. According to the state, he was one of 2,100 people unemployed during December in the Lawrence metropolitan area.

Hill said he’d tried to land a job in the manufacturing sector but found it tough because the market was flooded with highly experienced applicants.

“There are a lot of people out there with long work histories who are looking for jobs right now,” Hill said. “Employers can take their pick now. They’re not going to hire you unless you have a lot of experience.”

A shaky start

It’s a situation that hasn’t hit hard in Kansas for 20 years.

Shandell Larson, left, Adecco career specialist, runs over the qualifications and duties of a job possibility with Lawrence resident Debbie McDowell. Adecco, 100 E. Ninth St., connects people looking for a temporary job with an employer. McDowell sought help from the service on Wednesday.

The state’s 4.2 percent unemployment rate for December wasn’t as high as it was in the early 1980s, but was the highest December reading since 1994.

Weber said department officials didn’t see the latest numbers as a sure sign 2003 would be one of Kansas’ worst for job creation, but they did raise questions.

“I don’t think you can yet foretell that it will be a terrible year, but it sure isn’t starting out very well,” Weber said.

Weber said unemployment claims traditionally spiked during December because many companies affected by the weather were making temporary layoffs and some manufacturing companies were downsizing during the holidays.

Weber said the majority of unemployment claims were filed by workers who expected to be laid off from their company on a temporary basis, but the numbers still caught officials by surprise.

“I was kind of shocked by all the activity we had in the last week of December,” Weber said. “You always have a lot of factory layoffs and weather layoffs around this time, but it was still very heavy considering all that. It was a big pile of layoffs.”

Local hiring

Shirley Martin-Smith of Lawrence’s employment services firm Adecco said she wasn’t entirely surprised by all the job hunters.

“I don’t think there is any question that we’re in deep,” Martin-Smith said. “I was around in ’83 and remember the depth of that recession, and I think this time period is very much like that time period.”

Several Lawrence business managers said they weren’t optimistic jobs would become more plentiful in 2003.

Mark Garrett, plant manager of the Hallmark Cards production facility in Lawrence — the largest-private employer in the city — said not to count on his company to add new jobs this year.

“My guess is we’ll be very flat to possibly seeing a slight decrease in our employment numbers,” Garrett said of the plant, which employs about 860 people. “As employees retire, I’d be surprised that we replace them on a one-to-one basis.”

Technological improvements could bring some job cuts at Hallmark, but Garrett said the main reason for the cuts was an economy that’s failed to instill much confidence in corporate America.

“I’d say our strategy is to just play it pretty conservatively because of all the unanswered questions about the future,” Garrett said.

‘Aren’t optimistic’

The story is much the same at Lawrence Paper Co., another of the city’s 10 largest private employers. It has about 300 workers at its cardboard box production facility.

“We don’t see a lot of change from last year,” said Jerry Pope, the company’s personnel director. “That’s not too good for job seekers because basically the only people we hired last year were to replace some people who left, and we didn’t always do that.

“We’re just glad we didn’t have to lay anyone off.”

While the company isn’t projecting layoffs this year, it doesn’t see any increase in demand from its customers, which include some of the country’s largest manufacturers.

“People just aren’t optimistic,” Pope said. “What I hear is the biggest part of it has to do with what will happen with Iraq. The market doesn’t like uncertainty, and we’ve got a lot of that going around right now.”

The slowdown hasn’t been confined to the industrial sector. The lodging market may have been hit as hard as any after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Rob Phillips, general manager of the Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence, said his business still hasn’t seen any solid signs of recovery.

“I’m not surprised that unemployment numbers are up,” Phillips said. “Unfortunately, we sent some to them.”

Phillips said he has laid off five of the hotel’s approximately 20 employees within the past two weeks. The hotel now is requiring managers to work overtime, staff night shifts, even clean rooms.

“We’re trying desperately to hold our core staff together,” Phillips said.

Signs of improvement

Martin-Smith said she’s still holding out hope that 2003 will be a better job market than 2002. She said there have been some signs that her clients, which include several large manufacturers in the Lawrence and Topeka areas, are seeing increased demand.

“It definitely feels better than a year ago,” Martin-Smith said. “We’re seeing a pickup in terms of companies hiring temporary workers.

“That is usually the first sign of a turnaround because when companies start to see an increase in business, they’ll test the market with temporary workers while they try to determine if the work is going to be there for the long term.”

Lynn Parman, vice president of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, said she thought companies across the country were beginning to get back to business as normal.

In January, Parman said, she fielded more requests from companies interested in Lawrence as a possible expansion site than she did in all of the fourth quarter of 2002.

“I think that shows businesses are becoming optimistic about 2003,” Parman said.

Job seekers

But there’s not much optimism at the Lawrence Workforce Center, 2540 Iowa, where out-of-work residents go to search several online data bases for available jobs.

“Our business has just been booming,” said Cheryl White, a manager with the center.

Carla Moore, a Lawrence resident, has been a regular there since losing her job in May when Sprint PCS closed its Lawrence customer service center, eliminating 500 jobs.

“Trying to find something that is above $8 an hour is just really bad right now,” Moore said. “I do temporary work, but that doesn’t really pay all the bills.”

She said many of her friends who worked at Sprint still are looking for work. Other friends who have found work are at jobs that don’t take advantage of their skills.

“I know a guy who is an engineer that is working in a kitchen right now,” Moore said.

Hill, the laid-off remodeling company worker, didn’t think the job market was going to improve in 2003.

“There’s just too much negative going on right now,” Hill said. “I wish it would improve because I’ve never been out of a job for so long in my life.”