Women in the LV Economy: Finding Stability

The Golden Living Center, tucked in the Lehigh Valley’s Phillipsburg, N.J., provides senior citizens with warm beds, friendly companionship, medical care and recreational activities. But for 57-year-old Beth Zellers, the facility provides something entirely different: a stable job.

For Zellers, the nation’s economic situation has proved difficult in the recent past. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) Beth has devoted her career to aiding the elderly, working at one living facility for 20 years and another for eight, also working as a short-order cook in between those jobs. In August of 2008, Zellers quit her job to move to Cape May, N.J. with her husband Tom.

“My mom had to quit her secure job…to go and take care of my dad because the only job my dad could get was three hours away and he is not able to take care of himself,” said Beth’s 22-year-old son Shawn Zellers.

In the Lehigh Valley and on a national scale, the Zellers’s situation is not an uncommon one. According to the Pennsylvania CareerLink’s Job & Labor Market Outlook, the Lehigh Valley unemployment rate sits at 8.1 percent, and Warren County, N.J. (where Phillipsburg lies) has a slightly higher, 8.8 percent rate.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s total unemployment rate dropped from 9.5 percent in February of 2011 to 8.3 percent in February 2012. In 2011, the unemployment rate for men 20 years of age and older rose to an astonishing 10 percent, dropping to 7.7 percent by February of 2012.

While men have been on a more volatile economic rollercoaster, women have certainly struggled in the economy as well. In February of 2011, the national unemployment rate for women over 20 was 7.9 percent, and the rate saw a small drop to 7.7 percent by February of 2012. Today, there is a 55 percent employment to population ratio for women in this age bracket.

The move to Cape May proved difficult for Beth. She explained that in Cape May County, the elderly population is extremely high, and so there are more advertised jobs in her field in the area.

However, she noted, “There are more people in the workforce [there] who are more transient, whereas here [in Phillipsburg], people get the jobs and they hold onto them for a lifetime.”

According to CareerLink’s Outlook, the health care and social assistance sector makes up the largest portion of the region’s job market with 16.8 percent of jobs. The next largest sector sits at 11.5 percent.

       

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After an unsuccessful job hunt in South Jersey, Zellers moved to Oxford, N.J. with Tom, and Beth supported her family by taking sporadic, part-time home care jobs.

According to Shawn, the situation was shaky and involved a lot of moving around for the couple.

“Home care people pass away or people can no longer afford it, and there’s no security that you can get a new person [to help]. There’s no guarantee of hours,” he said.

Beth added, “It’s kind of scary when you move around like that because you don’t know what’s going to be available. I was fortunate to at least find the home care so I could do something working with the elderly.”

Voicing regret at not pursuing her Master’s degree, Beth is slightly constrained in her options and is not able to look for work within a hospital.

“At times I have thought that I’m stuck [in this field], but I like it….There’s times when I think I should try something else but I am comfortable doing what I’m doing,” she said.

In October of 2011, Zellers found work as the Director of Social Services at the Golden Living Center, and her family has been living in the Lehigh Valley since that time. The job, she says, offers a stable paycheck, but she still sees it necessary to supplement her salary there.

“I think mainly I’m making the same salary that I made five years ago when I left the one facility that I worked at,” she said. “Basically, though, I’ve been told that they don’t know when they’re going to be able to do any raises, and I am salaried at my full-time job but I put in a lot of hours and there’s no compensation for that.”
       

Beth will soon begin working part-time to add to her salary, visiting an elderly woman for six hours on the weekends to keep her company and give her medical aid.

“When you work for a large corporation, you always have the fear that they have the ability to replace you, because they have the ability to search anywhere for someone,” she said.

However, Beth is confident that Golden Living is looking for people who will stay with the company and continue to grow and learn.

Shawn said, “I think she will stay there for a while, if she doesn’t the bills will not get paid. My dad doesn’t have a job at the moment."

Beth hopes that’s the case, too.

“I hope it works out, I don’t like changing jobs. And the other thing is, with the job market out there right now, if I can hold on to what I have, I want to….I like stability,” she said.

Video by Melissa Collins, ‘13. Story by Jess Fromm, ‘12.