Minnesota job losses hit men hardest

Men are bearing the brunt of job losses in this recession -- especially in Minnesota.

Nearly seven of every 10 applicants for jobless benefits in the state, 68.3 percent, were men, according to U.S. Labor Department figures from 2008.

Only North Dakota had a larger share of men among its unemployment applicants, 71.9 percent.

Nationally, about 59 percent of the people filing for jobless benefits in 2008 were men. They make up 53 percent of the country's workforce.

The skewing of layoffs toward men is exacerbating the downturn's effects on family budgets and spending, since women on average earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men.

"It's particularly insidious in that we have a situation with a lot of dual-income households, where typically, the male earns more than the female," said Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson. "It's not a cut to half of the [household income], it's more like a cut of 60 percent."

An early casualty

"It's mostly males, middle-aged and over 40," who come to the center looking for work, said Larry Curry, senior customer service specialist. "It is engineers and a lot of construction workers, CEOs and directors ... IT [information technology] and sales folks. We get them all here.

"A lot of them are taking part-time jobs, anything they can until they can find a job again that is within their profession," he added.

Hopkins resident Marc Shelby was scouring the center's computers for a job. He lost his sales position at legal-publishing firm Thomson Reuters in October after hurricanes tore through the Houston territory he covered.

Thanks to unemployment benefits, Shelby is still able to pay half the rent on the $1,200-a-month townhouse he shares with his girlfriend and her son. But he no longer has health insurance, and the weekly $421 he gets from the state will expire next month.

"It's been tough," said Shelby, 39. "What I am finding out is that sales are an early casualty of this economy. People just are not buying."

If a job in that field doesn't come open soon, "I'll have to explore fast food or some part-time work and help friends with their landscaping. It may not be the type of work I'm [seeking] but hey, you have to keep the lights on," Shelby said.

Major Minnesota manufacturers have been in the forefront of the recent layoffs in the Twin Cities -- from 3M Co. to Andersen Corp. to Imation, Ecolab to Pentair -- that has helped boost the percentage of laid-off men well above the totals for women.

Hank Cox, spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturing, said about three-quarters of the workers at the factories he visits across the country are men.

"Women typically have chosen different career paths and crowd into indoor and office jobs," Cox said. "And they pay less than the lineman with the electric company who is outside working in the elements. "Conversely, when the layoffs come, the guys take it on the chin first," Cox added.

Nowhere else to go

In Northome, Minn., business at Wayne Skoe's logging operation and lumberyard has been so bad that he's had to include his own son among the layoffs.

"Men are the breadwinners most of the time," Skoe said. "In the logging industry, it's probably 99 percent male."

With the collapse of the housing sector and a weak paper industry, layoffs in the wood industry have cost hundreds of local men their jobs.

"I lost money two years in a row and I could no longer afford to keep my workers. I am still in business but I have downsized tremendously," Skoe said. He added that he's not sure how long he can keep running Skoe Lumber and Timber, the business his father started about 40 years ago.

One laid-off friend recently found work as a trucker for a Montana oil company. He comes home every other weekend to visit his wife, who stayed behind to keep her banking job and the family's health insurance.

Another friend who lost his job last year found construction work in North Dakota. His wife, who works in health care, has stayed in Minnesota to care for their child.

"You suck it up and do what you have to," Skoe said.

Still the dynamic can wreck family finances and marriages in rural communities.

"When you lose your manufacturing job in some of these towns, there really isn't much else to go to," Cox said.