Nicole Flennaugh has a college degree, office experience and the modest expectation that, somewhere in this city on the eastern lip of San Francisco Bay, someone will want to hire her.<\/p>\n
But Ms. Flennaugh, 36, a widow, cannot secure steady, decent-paying work to support herself and her two daughters. Nearly two years after she was laid off as a customer service representative at the Educational Testing Service, and even after applying for dozens of full-time jobs, she has been getting by with occasional stints as an office temp.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re used to making $17 an hour with benefits, and now you have to take any job for $8 an hour,\u201d\u009d Ms. Flennaugh says. On a recent afternoon, she sat in front of a computer terminal at an employment center in a gritty part of town, scrolling dejectedly through online job listings while sending another batch of applications into the ether.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve literally sat and cried, but my friends with double degrees are doing worse,\u201d\u009d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the economy. It\u2019s really bad.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n