Patricia Caputo began last week the same way she has nearly every week this year: rushing along with the morning commuter traffic at Union Station to her 5-foot-by-6-foot cubicle in a nearby office building.
Twelve letters and six phone calls later, she started on the thank-you notes. When your occupation has become searching for a job, you take advantage of any chance to remind a prospective employer of your existence, even if the excuse is merely a phone call accepted.
”It`s my full-time job. There`s not much time for anything else,” said Caputo, who was laid off by St. Paul Federal Bank for Savings in November.
Caputo, a 47-year-old mid-level manager, had spent 14 years at St. Paul. This year, she has divided her week between a suburban home, where she converted the back room to an office, and the plain beige cubicle downtown. The use of the cubicle was one of the benefits of an outplacement service paid for by the thrift, a common arrangement in the financial industry.
The deal-making of the 1980s that drove financial services is done. And in retailing, the other darling of the Reagan years, the same thought is on the mind of industry leaders: overcapacity. Executives at banks and department stores seem to be reading from the same script; in the years ahead, goes the common refrain, fewer of us will be in business.
More strip malls and bigger department store chains have been the legacy of the long years of expansion. But now Baby Boomers, burdened by debt, are moving from their buying years to their saving years. And with many having children later in life, they are facing the prospect of saving for college and retirement at the same time.
Christmas 1989 was a big disappointment for retailers. Christmas 1990 was worse. And the surge in spending that was at least supposed to end the recession after the Persian Gulf war still eludes the industry.
”Business remains difficult. I haven`t seen that change yet,” said Stephen Watson, president of the department store chain Dayton-Hudson Corp.
”All of us are hoping signs of a recovery will show up in consumer spending, but we`ll continue to keep ourselves tight until we see a clear sign.”
Well before the rest of the country fell into recession, talk in the financial industry had switched from zero-coupon bonds to resume writing.
The 1987 stock market crash began the flow of pink slips to brokers and traders. The savings and loan industry was in crisis. Large banks in Chicago started cutting their staffs in spring of 1990.
By January, when the Chicago chapter of Financial Women International met, a quarter of the membership was unemployed, estimated Michaelene Mikus, the chapter president.
Some of them have now found jobs but, said First National Bank of Chicago economist Diane Swonk, ”I wouldn`t be surprised if we see more hits in the financial services industry through the summer.”
Initially, with an MBA and experience with computers, Caputo thought she might come out ahead on her six months severance pay. It was April before she had her first job interview. There have been no offers yet.
Caputo reads the news reports that the recession may be coming to an end, but, she notes, ”Figures are not real people.”
”The one thing I do know,” she said, ”is there are a lot more people looking than there are jobs.”
