In Corona, 112 city jobs were cut to help pare $10.6 million out of its $90-million budget. Riverside County officials say layoffs may be necessary to cut as much as a quarter of the county's operating budget over the next four years.
For residents of the area, the depth of the anxiety is on full view each weekday at the employment center in Riverside where Leaverton, the former cookie deliveryman, hopes to find job leads.
Employees at the center, a county-state partnership, say the lines grow longer each week, with clients seeking employment tips and applying for unemployment benefits. The number of claims filed in San Bernardino and Riverside counties has doubled in the last year.
In an office liberally decorated with framed motivational posters, Retha Smith, a counselor at the center, balanced three cardboard boxes on a red dolly filled with pamphlets and resume binders. Downsizing companies invite Smith in to help their former employees find new jobs. She was going to hand the materials out at a nearby mobile home manufacturer that had laid off dozens of workers.
"I'm hot from running around," she said. "I've been out every day. Tomorrow I go to Mervyn's."
Counselors meet with job seekers one on one, assessing their skills and trying to pair them with fields that are hiring. Those options have dwindled significantly and those that do exist now are often seasonal, such as retail positions for the holidays.
Ron Anderson took a written test at the center in hopes of landing a position with the U.S. Census Bureau that pays $14 to $17 an hour. The job would last only a few months, but the 51-year-old Moreno Valley resident said he could not afford to be picky, not after losing his job of 17 years in May and a replacement job in August, both because of downsizing.
In the meantime, Anderson is collecting about $130 a week in unemployment benefits, most of which he uses to pay for his prescription medicine.
"I'm trying to keep a positive outlook," said Anderson, a former telephone salesman for mail-order products. "It's all you can do. But sometimes I go home and have to kick a tree and shake the fence."
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david.pierson@latimes.com
