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Hard Times Hit Rural East Texas: Almost 16 % Unemployment Locally
October 31, 2009 - 10:27 AM
There is not much to add that has not been said in the article. We only hope that the global economy recovers and returns us to better times.
Subject: Highest unemployment rates in Texas
'Company county' in NE Texas anxiously tries to weather another bust cycle
Posted Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009
By STEVE CAMPBELL
sfcampbell@star-telegram.com
LONE STAR — At 8.2 percent, Texas’ unemployment rate is the highest in 22 years. But that sounds enviable in Morris County, an isolated industrial island in the northeast corner of the state where the jobless rate has reached 15.6 percent, even higher than in Michigan.
There isn’t a drilling rig at work in the county, 130 miles east of Dallas, but the slowdown in places like the Barnett Shale has rippled across Texas and virtually shuttered the area’s prime employer, the sprawling U.S. Steel Tubular Products plant in Lone Star, which produces pipe for drilling.
Since January, more than 1,300 jobs have been lost at the mill, said Kay O’Dell, executive director of Workforce Solutions Northeast Texas. An estimated 200 workers are still on the job.
The impact has rolled across the rural region, said O’Dell, who noted that many mill workers commuted from Cass County (12.5 percent unemployment) and Red River County (10.5 percent). The workers earned an estimated $18.50 to $21 per hour. But when the mill was "blowing and going" in full production, steelworkers frequently racked up 20 and 30 hours of overtime a week for months at a time, union workers said. "People drove a long way because these jobs paid very good for this area. And they didn’t require a very high educational level," O’Dell said.
Those factors sent generations of steelworkers’ sons from high school to the mill, creating a "company county," said John Feezell, an economics professor at LeTourneau University in Longview.
People here say they’re a resilient bunch who over the decades have toughed it out through bitter strikes and other downturns in the steel business.
But this is different.
The recession has limited people’s options, and after U.S. Steel bought the mill in 2007, there’s no local connection to the plant’s future. "That’s a major change," Feezell said.
More so than most areas, all of Morris County’s economic eggs are in one basket, and that stiffens the odds for jobless workers — there are no comparable jobs within easy commuting distance, and friends, neighbors and former co-workers are competing for the few positions available. And for people willing to move for work, selling their homes becomes equally problematic, Feezell said.
'We’re praying’
At the Church on the Rock in Daingerfield, where contributions are down and requests for help are up, people are anxious, pastor Randy Seybert said. "We’re doing a lot of praying," he said.
The 175-member congregation meets in a former Chevrolet dealership, which is emblematic of small-town America’s woes. County Judge J.C. Jennings said there were once five auto dealerships in the county of 13,000 but the last holdout closed in 2003. "That didn’t help our tax base," he said.
Seybert said: "As a church, we’re struggling. A few people have moved away and we have families split because the husband goes out of town to work and will be gone for two months."
The struggle has moved in with Seybert and his wife, Elizabeth.
A former county agricultural extension agent, Seybert hasn’t planted a garden for 15 years. But this summer he organized a community garden in his yard with four families. "That garden fed a lot of people," he said.
But the bigger impact has been inside the house. The couple’s two daughters have grown up, but their "empty nest has been repopulated" by two men who lost their jobs.
Morris County’s small businesses have been decimated by the mill’s troubles.
Lone Star gas station owner Bruce Hall has seen revenue drop by 65 percent. "People are scared," he said.
At Lone Star Lube, which services trucks that haul steel, owner Mike Rogers has slashed his staff from nine to three. "I’ll be working here for nothing this year," he said. "The truckers aren’t moving so they don’t need service."
But the two businessmen worry that the layoffs are just the first wave of woe in the town of 1,300.
"U.S. Steel wants to cut their tax evaluation in half," Rogers said. "And that’s going to kill people like me and Bruce. We’ll be the tax base."
On the shore of Ellison Creek Reservoir, known locally as Lone Star Lake since it was constructed to provide water for the mill, Jim and Kim Sly have seen revenue drop more than 85 percent at their Scenic View Marina, which has the only motel rooms in town.
Their bread-and-butter customers were contractors at the mill, and in 2006 and 2007 they worked off a waiting list. "The gravy train: You can’t ride it forever, so we planned for the slowdown," Kim Sly said. "But it’s pretty depressing. We’re praying."
'It’s not food’
Six miles up the road in Daingerfield, the county seat, a sign of the hard times is on the marquee at the Morris Theatre, a fixture since 1923: "All seats, all showtimes, $1.50!"
"There’s no jobs anywhere here and people can’t afford to move," said Jerry Hurndon, 52, who recently lost his job at Walmart and has been reduced to selling sweet potatoes at a makeshift roadside stand. "The mill shutdown hit everything. Kids are trying to join the Army to get a life."
Perkison Jewelry, a family shop since it opened in 1953, has withstood the typical challenges for small businesses in small towns. Initially, it was the first mall 35 miles south in Longview, then came the big-box retailers in neighboring towns like Mount Pleasant, said Betty Dawn Weir, whose father started the store.
And now it’s the economy.
"We started seeing the recession a long time ago," she said with a rueful laugh. "It’s getting harder and harder. When you think it’s bad as it can get, it gets worse."
"This isn’t necessary," Weir said, gesturing toward her inventory of jewelry and watches. "It’s not food."
But one local institution is thriving: Fall enrollment is up 19 percent and work-force programs are up 50 percent at Northeast Texas Community College in Mount Pleasant, President Brad Johnson said.
The automotive repair program’s enrollment has soared from 131 students in fall 2008 to 496, and the criminal justice program jumped from 461 students to 1,247, he said.
But Johnson is still uneasy.
"What is unsettling to many of us is we aren’t sure what the local economy will look like as we come out of the recession. There is a lot of anxiety about that," he said.
Steel cycles
Iron and steel have been a bedrock in Morris County from its earliest days. Iron ore deposits have been mined since before the Civil War, and those deposits attracted the federal government during World War II when a blast furnace was built in Lone Star.
The Lone Star Steel Co. bought the furnace in 1948 and built the steel mill in the early 1950s. In its heyday, during the 1970s, the plant employed 10,000 workers, Jennings said.
But multiple strikes over the decades and the oil bust of the 1980s, which forced the company to suspend operations and sent the county’s unemployment rate to 24.2 percent, have left the work force with an uneasy familiarity with busts.
Donnie Qualls, 58, president of the United Steelworkers of America’s local union, has seen it all. His father and two uncles "worked in steel," and he’s been at the mill for 39 years.
"In the past, these were the best jobs around," he said. "People drove here all the way from Arkansas."
Qualls estimates that 100-200 workers are still at the mill after a recent callback to service a pipe order. In the meantime, he fires up the coffeepot early for a regular procession of workers hoping for news.
But U.S. Steel isn’t saying anything. Courtney Boone, a public affairs specialist at the Pittsburgh-based company, said it does not comment outside of its quarterly reports. "We do adjust our production to meet demand," she said.
Frank Green, 56, has been laid off four times in his 27 years at the mill.
"It’s always boom or bust; as soon as they have you working 60 or 70 hours, you know the bottom is about to fall out," he said. "But it’s a good living when it’s blowing and going."
Union workers do have more options than most unemployed people. Supplemental unemployment pay and medical insurance can provide an extra cushion for up to 18 months, Qualls said.
Some workers, like Mike Blackburn, 63, are biding their time. "It don’t bother me; I’m an old man. I can retire," he said. "I’m hurting for the young people. They don’t have options."
That’s what worries District Attorney Steve Cowan.
"We’ve had a tough economy for a long time. What really happens is that our kids leave," said Cowan, whose three children have pursued careers elsewhere.
And if more people are forced to migrate, there’s lingering hope that maybe the next cycle could complete a shaky economic circle.
"You can buy a house here for a third of the price in the Metroplex," Cowan said. "We are getting people who are coming back to retire in their parents’ home."
Subject: Highest unemployment rates in Texas
'Company county' in NE Texas anxiously tries to weather another bust cycle
Posted Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009
By STEVE CAMPBELL
sfcampbell@star-telegram.com
LONE STAR — At 8.2 percent, Texas’ unemployment rate is the highest in 22 years. But that sounds enviable in Morris County, an isolated industrial island in the northeast corner of the state where the jobless rate has reached 15.6 percent, even higher than in Michigan.
There isn’t a drilling rig at work in the county, 130 miles east of Dallas, but the slowdown in places like the Barnett Shale has rippled across Texas and virtually shuttered the area’s prime employer, the sprawling U.S. Steel Tubular Products plant in Lone Star, which produces pipe for drilling.
Since January, more than 1,300 jobs have been lost at the mill, said Kay O’Dell, executive director of Workforce Solutions Northeast Texas. An estimated 200 workers are still on the job.
The impact has rolled across the rural region, said O’Dell, who noted that many mill workers commuted from Cass County (12.5 percent unemployment) and Red River County (10.5 percent). The workers earned an estimated $18.50 to $21 per hour. But when the mill was "blowing and going" in full production, steelworkers frequently racked up 20 and 30 hours of overtime a week for months at a time, union workers said. "People drove a long way because these jobs paid very good for this area. And they didn’t require a very high educational level," O’Dell said.
Those factors sent generations of steelworkers’ sons from high school to the mill, creating a "company county," said John Feezell, an economics professor at LeTourneau University in Longview.
People here say they’re a resilient bunch who over the decades have toughed it out through bitter strikes and other downturns in the steel business.
But this is different.
The recession has limited people’s options, and after U.S. Steel bought the mill in 2007, there’s no local connection to the plant’s future. "That’s a major change," Feezell said.
More so than most areas, all of Morris County’s economic eggs are in one basket, and that stiffens the odds for jobless workers — there are no comparable jobs within easy commuting distance, and friends, neighbors and former co-workers are competing for the few positions available. And for people willing to move for work, selling their homes becomes equally problematic, Feezell said.
'We’re praying’
At the Church on the Rock in Daingerfield, where contributions are down and requests for help are up, people are anxious, pastor Randy Seybert said. "We’re doing a lot of praying," he said.
The 175-member congregation meets in a former Chevrolet dealership, which is emblematic of small-town America’s woes. County Judge J.C. Jennings said there were once five auto dealerships in the county of 13,000 but the last holdout closed in 2003. "That didn’t help our tax base," he said.
Seybert said: "As a church, we’re struggling. A few people have moved away and we have families split because the husband goes out of town to work and will be gone for two months."
The struggle has moved in with Seybert and his wife, Elizabeth.
A former county agricultural extension agent, Seybert hasn’t planted a garden for 15 years. But this summer he organized a community garden in his yard with four families. "That garden fed a lot of people," he said.
But the bigger impact has been inside the house. The couple’s two daughters have grown up, but their "empty nest has been repopulated" by two men who lost their jobs.
Morris County’s small businesses have been decimated by the mill’s troubles.
Lone Star gas station owner Bruce Hall has seen revenue drop by 65 percent. "People are scared," he said.
At Lone Star Lube, which services trucks that haul steel, owner Mike Rogers has slashed his staff from nine to three. "I’ll be working here for nothing this year," he said. "The truckers aren’t moving so they don’t need service."
But the two businessmen worry that the layoffs are just the first wave of woe in the town of 1,300.
"U.S. Steel wants to cut their tax evaluation in half," Rogers said. "And that’s going to kill people like me and Bruce. We’ll be the tax base."
On the shore of Ellison Creek Reservoir, known locally as Lone Star Lake since it was constructed to provide water for the mill, Jim and Kim Sly have seen revenue drop more than 85 percent at their Scenic View Marina, which has the only motel rooms in town.
Their bread-and-butter customers were contractors at the mill, and in 2006 and 2007 they worked off a waiting list. "The gravy train: You can’t ride it forever, so we planned for the slowdown," Kim Sly said. "But it’s pretty depressing. We’re praying."
'It’s not food’
Six miles up the road in Daingerfield, the county seat, a sign of the hard times is on the marquee at the Morris Theatre, a fixture since 1923: "All seats, all showtimes, $1.50!"
"There’s no jobs anywhere here and people can’t afford to move," said Jerry Hurndon, 52, who recently lost his job at Walmart and has been reduced to selling sweet potatoes at a makeshift roadside stand. "The mill shutdown hit everything. Kids are trying to join the Army to get a life."
Perkison Jewelry, a family shop since it opened in 1953, has withstood the typical challenges for small businesses in small towns. Initially, it was the first mall 35 miles south in Longview, then came the big-box retailers in neighboring towns like Mount Pleasant, said Betty Dawn Weir, whose father started the store.
And now it’s the economy.
"We started seeing the recession a long time ago," she said with a rueful laugh. "It’s getting harder and harder. When you think it’s bad as it can get, it gets worse."
"This isn’t necessary," Weir said, gesturing toward her inventory of jewelry and watches. "It’s not food."
But one local institution is thriving: Fall enrollment is up 19 percent and work-force programs are up 50 percent at Northeast Texas Community College in Mount Pleasant, President Brad Johnson said.
The automotive repair program’s enrollment has soared from 131 students in fall 2008 to 496, and the criminal justice program jumped from 461 students to 1,247, he said.
But Johnson is still uneasy.
"What is unsettling to many of us is we aren’t sure what the local economy will look like as we come out of the recession. There is a lot of anxiety about that," he said.
Steel cycles
Iron and steel have been a bedrock in Morris County from its earliest days. Iron ore deposits have been mined since before the Civil War, and those deposits attracted the federal government during World War II when a blast furnace was built in Lone Star.
The Lone Star Steel Co. bought the furnace in 1948 and built the steel mill in the early 1950s. In its heyday, during the 1970s, the plant employed 10,000 workers, Jennings said.
But multiple strikes over the decades and the oil bust of the 1980s, which forced the company to suspend operations and sent the county’s unemployment rate to 24.2 percent, have left the work force with an uneasy familiarity with busts.
Donnie Qualls, 58, president of the United Steelworkers of America’s local union, has seen it all. His father and two uncles "worked in steel," and he’s been at the mill for 39 years.
"In the past, these were the best jobs around," he said. "People drove here all the way from Arkansas."
Qualls estimates that 100-200 workers are still at the mill after a recent callback to service a pipe order. In the meantime, he fires up the coffeepot early for a regular procession of workers hoping for news.
But U.S. Steel isn’t saying anything. Courtney Boone, a public affairs specialist at the Pittsburgh-based company, said it does not comment outside of its quarterly reports. "We do adjust our production to meet demand," she said.
Frank Green, 56, has been laid off four times in his 27 years at the mill.
"It’s always boom or bust; as soon as they have you working 60 or 70 hours, you know the bottom is about to fall out," he said. "But it’s a good living when it’s blowing and going."
Union workers do have more options than most unemployed people. Supplemental unemployment pay and medical insurance can provide an extra cushion for up to 18 months, Qualls said.
Some workers, like Mike Blackburn, 63, are biding their time. "It don’t bother me; I’m an old man. I can retire," he said. "I’m hurting for the young people. They don’t have options."
That’s what worries District Attorney Steve Cowan.
"We’ve had a tough economy for a long time. What really happens is that our kids leave," said Cowan, whose three children have pursued careers elsewhere.
And if more people are forced to migrate, there’s lingering hope that maybe the next cycle could complete a shaky economic circle.
"You can buy a house here for a third of the price in the Metroplex," Cowan said. "We are getting people who are coming back to retire in their parents’ home."
Highest unemployment rates in Texas
1. Starr County 17.8 percent
2. Presidio County 17.8 percent
3. Zavala County 16.3 percent
4. Sabine County 15.9 percent
5. Morris County 15.6 percent
6. Reeves County 14.0 percent
7. Willacy County 13.9 percent
8. Maverick County 13.6 percent
9. Cass County 12.5 percent
10. Duval County 12.5 percent
Source: Texas Workforce Commission
Steve Campbell, 817-390-7981