Kind of a long article about the economy of Ithaca (in relation to much of the rest of upstate), and the pros and cons of the employment picture (low unemployment rate, but many under employed).
Hollywood, for Academics
By: Bryan Chambala
06/07/2007
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Kate Shear is hard to find. Today she's not at Gimme!, or at the house on Seneca she's working on; nothing to be found of her but the sweet wispy song on her cell phone return message.
She works part-time, two jobs. This time of the year it keeps her busy, sometimes seven days a week. Gimme! until close, then over to Sticky Rice to paint the walls. Then up in the morning to finish painting Sticky Rice before it opens; then more work.
Shear is "underemployed" by what is now a fluid and semi-modern definition. She has a bachelor's degree from Cornell, in art and performance. And she joins a likely considerable, but yet-to-be-officially determined number of Ithacans who hold degrees, whether they be bachelor's or advanced, and work either part-time or at least somewhere under their projected career positioning.
Some do it because in this town, even with a vibrant and enviable economy, a good job can be hard to find, especially for those without a good-enough job already. Competition for open positions is stiff, as Cornell can receive hundreds of application and resumes for mid-level, and even lower-tier positions, according to officials at Tompkins WorkForce. And, some do it for reasons close to Shear's: She came to Ithaca as a college student, graduated, and found that she not only wanted to remain in Ithaca, but also sought the flexibility inherent in part-time work.
For Shear, pouring coffee and fixing homes lets her do what she really wants to do in her "free" time: create art.
But it pushes her into a category of worker that has been difficult to define, although later this summer the county will try.
There is a simple statistical comparison to help understand the unique pressure of Ithaca. According to the 2005 United States Census, 53.1 percent of Tompkins County residents had attained a bachelor's degree or higher. In the 2000 census, 22.7 percent of residents in neighboring Broome County had attained a bachelor's degree or higher; the number was 18.5 in Chemung County, and 28.4 percent in Onondaga County.
Diane Bradac, manager of the Tompkins Workforce One-Stop Career Center in Center Ithaca, says her office sees first-hand the results of underemployment in what is a vibrant economy marked by low unemployment, but high-level competition for mid-level openings.
"We have numerous programs for people seeking to either enter the workforce, or improve their standing," she says. "A lot of people are looking for the kind of training you need to either find a better position, or to move up within an organization. And, employers come to us with the same concerns; they want to be able to retain employees, but there is a certain flexibility needed to do so."
Unemployment is low here, she says [the annual average for the Ithaca area in 2006 was 3.4 percent; in Binghamton it was 4.5 percent; in Syracuse 4.5 percent; and in Elmira 4.9 percent], but many people work at positions not necessarily befitting their education.
For some, this is a choice that may lead to [or be the result of] a surprising happiness.
"I know an awful lot of people who have their degrees and are not working in the field they went to school for; and I people who are," says Noah Drew, a sound-engineering graduate from the Five Towns College in Dix Hills, Long Island who gave up that career because of a "massive amount of hatred for the work"; parlayed a glass-blowing career into a move to Ithaca; got tired of the one-man factory nature of the work; worked a number of "transition" jobs; and eventually got a job at McNeil Music working in the store and teaching guitar lessons.
"You're generally working on your degree when you're younger," he says, "and then you graduate and realize 'what do I do?' I know an awful lot of people who were in that situation. I know some who have followed through and changed careers and are happier for it. And I know some who have stuck with what they studied, gotten good jobs, and they're miserable.
"I know lot of people on both sides of the fence," he says, "... you know, the grass is always greener ... ."
Drew says his primary reason for remaining with McNeil is the simple fact that he enjoys the work.
"I would love to have more income, it always would be better; but I don't know anyone who would turn down more money," he says. "I love being with the students; my name is getting out there, and I'm gathering more students, filling up the time I'm not working in the store; and from an economic standpoint I'm getting to the point where the [money from teaching] students is matching my check, so I get to play guitar that much more."
And Drew, who at 37 has lived in Ithaca for eight years, is a good example of someone who has a life in Ithaca built up to a certain level of stability and happiness that would likely serve as complex competition in the event of another job offer in another city.
"The job I have right now, I absolutely love," he says. "My band is here [he's the guitarist in Chemical Flaw,
http://www.myspace.com/chemicallyflawed], but I guess if [another, higher-paying] job presented itself, I'd be open to it. But ... ."
Shear's approach is to use Ithaca as something of a home base, from which she works [too much sometimes; she tried to find a schedule laying out her upcoming workweek, but settled for saying, "I go away for a week, and I come back and I'm working every day."], as well as creates her art, and performs her art [dance], in what she says is supportive environment.
"I really need to have a place to be home," she says. "For practical reasons, I need a place to store things. All winter I collected trees for a project I'm working on, and I've got to have some place to put them. But it's also the kind of place you can afford to live working part-time jobs, and still have the time to do other things."
To that end, Shear says she is slowly building on a savings fund at Alternatives Federal Credit Union, hoping to buy a house in the city, possibly within 10 years or so.
"This is my long-term plan," she says. "Flexibility, and stability."
The anecdotal evidence is easy enough to find. Turn to your left, ask the person sitting [or standing, or kneeling, or perhaps mangled into some kind of sweating, serious yoga pose] there if they "know anybody around here with a master's serving coffee or hammering nails or something?" They will. This is Ithaca: Hollywood for Academics.
The waitresses, the bartenders, even the Kuma Charmers, they're all somebody else. But unlike the golden hills of Los Angeles, where that somebody else usually is a frustrated actor, or a musician living in a storage facility, cooking on a hot plate and peeing in the alley; in Ithaca your "somebody else" is likely a former MFA, or a Ph.D candidate at Cornell, or possibly Berklee grads come to couch-bounce for a few weeks and maybe check out "this EcoVillage thing."
For many, being in Ithaca is enough.
Shear, who is from Mamaroneck, says she hadn't heard of Ithaca until traveling here to visit Cornell with what is now an ex-boyfriend ["I got in, he didn't," she says. "So, it worked out."]. She grew to like the city quickly, and during the course of studies at Cornell decided on her "long-term plan," which will probably still get her qualified as "underemployed" when the county and Tompkins WorkForce agree on a formula and figure later this summer.
Bradac says the WorkForce plans to work with the county, as well as Tompkins County Area Development to come up with a presentable figure regarding Tompkins' underemployed.
"There is a lot of methodology to wade through," she says. "But our goal is to find a figure this year; it's going to help us understand, and help other people understand, the situation in the area."
Delaware County's Chamber of Commerce helped to prompt a similar movement last year, arriving at an underemployment figure of 32.2 percent [with an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent; and a degree rate of 16.6 percent], which is likely to be trumped, possibly in a convincing manner, in Ithaca.
The methodology used in the Delaware study was similar to that which will be used here, drawing heavily from a 2003 report out of the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville that has become a sort of "industry" standard for economists and social agencies trying to define what had previously been disregarded by many economists as a non-essential figure, says Bradac.
The study involves the issuance of detailed surveys, and focuses on many of the questions asked in a typical Census, attempting to gather more knowledge than a rote unemployment survey.
Many of the questions surrounding the definition of underemployment are focused on the varying definitions [underemployed as underutilization of skills; as underuse of economic capacity; and as underuse of employed worker], and trying to include all three in the findings.
Bradac says the study, when completed, will help her agency to focus efforts on improving worker training, as well as further assisting applicants in refining their skills and presentation for jobs in the area.
What it will not do, of course, is to necessarily solve the "problem," if what in Ithaca is essentially the offshoot of an overly ripe economy can be called a problem.
On this fitful and rainy Tuesday, ladders are spread around a house on Seneca Street, up in the green neighborhood. Kate Shear isn't there; she's out again downtown, shopping on her bike.
It's one of the benefits of her work.
"I intentionally learned these skills, which really are a more practical off-shoot of my art training, so that I would always have that base," she says. "And, on a morning like this, I'm glad it rained and I get to take the morning off. It's one of the perks." n
Shear's work can be found at
www.kathrynlynnshearman.com.
©Ithaca Times 2007
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