TV Reviews : Helpful Hints for Unemployed Workers on PBS

Week after week of TV reports on the Recession That Wouldn’t Die are plenty depressing, and no more depressing than to the jobless who have more than the usual time to sit in front of the tube and watch those reports.

While PBS’ “Out of Work” (tonight at 10 on KCET Channel 28; 9 p.m. on KPBS Channel 15) is a document of our sluggish economy, it’s also one of the few practical video hours the unemployed can use. Simply, it tells how to cope with losing a job, how to regain your footing in an economic landscape of shifting ground and how to maximize your chances of nabbing a new position.

If you’re a blue-collar worker, however, you may be out of luck watching “Out of Work.” Host Joe Bergantino focuses on the travails and tactics relevant to the white-collar person, while, like the economy itself, leaving the factory person out in the cold. For a veteran GM worker laid off from the Van Nuys plant, it’s hard to imagine that the how-to’s spelled out here will be of much aid.

Rather, the program’s target group consists of those laid off from firms that played the merger game of the ‘80s, or companies, such as financial and high-tech outfits, constantly restructuring themselves. They include such “workaholics” as John Devine, caught unprepared for his layoff precisely because he saw himself as a loyal, hard-working company man.

Career counselors like Marcie Schorr Hirch take the viewer through the jobless minefield, from the Bad News to the New Job. Their advice is worth paying attention to: Keep the family informed; lick your wounds, then start job-hunting; budget your time and money like a hawk; assume you won’t land a duplicate of your last job at the same pay; network with anyone who can help; in the interview, stress what’s unique about yourself.

Economist Robert Reich, who’s becoming a PBS regular, provides the larger ideas that inform the brave new work world: The average employee will switch positions at least six times during a career; company loyalty is dead; Americans are debtors, not savers; those who don’t keep learning new skills will be left behind. But the remark in this report that really makes an imprint comes from Boston radio host Tony Gill: “Being out of work for seven months is a humbler.”