It’s Sink or Swim as Pool of Jobs Shrinks : Employment: There are fewer openings, more applicants, analysts say. The lucky ones are just grateful to be working.

When David Floyd got a job as a laborer five months ago, the first thing he did was move out of the trailer with no heat and water where he had lived during two long years of unemployment.

The regular paycheck also allowed Floyd, 37, of Oxnard to pay for braces for his 8-year-old daughter, Emily.

“She will go through life with straight teeth and a pretty smile,” Floyd said. “Little things like that mean a lot to me.”

While Ventura County’s unemployment rate continues to hover above 9%, many who have recently landed jobs said they are grateful this Thanksgiving simply to be working. And with nearly 36,000 county residents out of work, a state unemployment official said they have reason to be thankful.

“There are jobs out there. There are a lot of jobs,” said Madeleine Brockwell, a spokeswoman with the Employment Development Department in Simi Valley. “There is just a lot of competition for them and it’s very, very difficult to get one.”

Although many economists believe the recession has hit bottom, the job market left in its wake is significantly different from the flush economic climate of the late ‘80s, job analysts say.

Companies in Ventura County and nationwide have reduced their employee pools in an effort to cut costs, and many of those positions have been lost permanently, labor market analysts said.

The net effect of corporate restructuring has been more unemployed people looking for fewer jobs, said Larry Kennedy, a field manager in the Simi Valley Employment Development Office. Ventura County lost 3,300 jobs in the last year, according to the latest unemployment figures available.

Unlike previous recessions, which tended to hit blue-collar workers the hardest, this economic downtown has punched middle managers and other professionals just as soundly, Kennedy said.

“There’s a big shock when they learn what it is like to look for work,” Kennedy said. “And after several months of being unemployed, getting that job brings such a feeling of elation.”

About 150 unemployed professionals meet each month in the Simi Valley unemployment office as part of the state-sponsored $60,000 Club. The club’s name is taken from the average incomes once earned by its 150 members, who, in better times, earned from $35,000 to more than $100,000 a year.

Kennedy advises members to take advantage of office space and computers provided by the Employment Development Department office to make up to 50 contacts a day with potential employers. That is the kind of persistence it takes to secure a new job, he said.

Even then, only about 10 job-club members are re-employed each month, he said.

The scramble for work continued this week at a job fair sponsored by the Conejo Youth Employment Service in Thousand Oaks. About 600 people went to The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks to apply for 300 temporary holiday jobs, said Ruth Ann Vegun, executive director of the employment service.

The applicants ranged from teen-agers to a man in his 60s, Vegun said.

“This man had experience in the military and years of experience in business,” she said. “And here he was applying for a job for $4.25 an hour. There are a lot of people out there who are willing to work for almost anything.”

For some, getting a job spells not only the end of a long period of unemployment, it represents triumph over personal problems that have locked them out of the labor market.

Michele Nelson said she held jobs off and on for the past five years while battling bouts of a manic-depressive mental disorder. Eighteen months ago, she lost her job as a dental office worker when she became so depressed that she was unable to work. She attempted suicide by cutting her wrists, she said.

“I didn’t actually want to kill myself,” said Nelson, 51, of Ventura. “It was just that the physical pain was better than the mental anguish.”

After undergoing psychological treatment at a board-and-care facility, Nelson was referred to the Turning Point Foundation in Ventura, a social service agency that provides mentally disabled adults with assistance in finding housing and employment.

The foundation hired her in September. Nelson works part time leading self-help groups for just over $8 an hour. The job brought not only a measure of financial security, it boosted her self-esteem, Nelson said.

She moved into her own apartment, bought a car and has started singing soprano with a local opera, Nelson said. And her doctor has discharged her, saying she is once again healthy, Nelson said.

“I was very fortunate to get the job,” she said. “I was in the right place at the right time. Having a car again and living on my own are symbols of my success.

The Turning Point Foundation also helped Oxnard resident David Floyd get back on his feet after he lost his job as a painter and sandblaster two years ago for using drugs. Addicted to cocaine and methamphetamines, Floyd said he lived in a ramshackle trailer on an empty lot and wasted away to 115 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame before he got help.

“I think I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Floyd said.

With the help of the Turning Point Foundation, he went through a 90-day treatment program. After becoming sober, he got back his job at Shumate Sandblasting and Painting in Oxnard, Floyd said.

That was five months ago. He said he has remained sober through participation in a 12-step program and is now living in a group home in Oxnard. Each weekend he visits his daughter, Emily, who lives with his ex-wife in Oxnard, he said.

In his free time, he often volunteers at the Food Share food bank in Oxnard. “David is really a success story,” said Food Bank director Jewel Pedi. “He did what he had to do to get himself cleaned up and working again.”

Floyd said he is thankful that his boss, Jack Shumate, decided to give him a second chance. “I can’t imagine that anything in the world would be worse than to go back to living how I was.”