Jobless discover old jobs now demand more skills

WASHINGTON - The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist - but they no longer qualify for them.

They're running into a trend that took root during the recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties - duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet the new requirements.

As a result, some database administrators now have to manage network security.

Accountants must do financial analysis to find ways to cut costs.

Factory assembly workers need to program computers to run machinery.

The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. That helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed people, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession.

The total number of job openings does remain historically low: 3.2 million, down from 4.4 million before the recession. But the number of openings has surged 37 percent in the last year. And yet the unemployment rate has actually risen during that time. Companies still aren't finding it easy to fill job vacancies.

Take Bayer MaterialScience, a unit of Bayer. When the pharmaceutical giant sought earlier this year to hire a health, safety, and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.

Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's chief executive officer, said the company interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained.

That shift, across multiple industries, has caught the eye of David Altig, research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.

A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs - and every job you fill has to have computer skills."

The result of the trend: Only 49 percent of people laid off from 2007 through 2009 were reemployed by January 2010, according to a Labor Department survey. It is the lowest such proportion since the survey began in 1984.