New York businessman wears sandwich board pleading for job

Paul Nawrocki, 59, took to the streets after nine months of fruitless searching for a new job, with a sandwich board that reads...

HomeNews 4 Kids12/14/2008[ New York, U.S.A. ] Tell - A - Friend

Paul Nawrocki, 59, took to the streets after nine months of fruitless searching for a new job, with a sandwich board that reads: "Almost Homeless. Looking for employment. Very experienced operations and administration manager.

"Desperately seeking full-time employment with insurance benefits. For self and family. Disabled wife on 15 medications." Despite several job interviews arranged by sympathetic passers-by who requested his CV, he has yet to return to work but has become a minor celebrity, with spots on CNN and articles in newspapers.

Mr Nawrocki, who has a 22-year-old daughter just out of university and lives in Beacon, New York, made a salary of "almost six figures" in his old job but has spent almost all his savings. "My unemployment benefits are going to run out in less than a month," he said. "I was getting a little panicked and didn't know what to do."

"People can be very warm here when they see that someone is genuinely vulnerable," added Mr Nawrocki, who was made redundant from his toy company job after 23 years as an import manager. "I've seen a lot of people look at me and get scared, too. Not of me, but you see it in their eyes.

They are thinking, "Could it come to this? Could this be me someday?" The image of desperate jobseekers on street corners is associated with the darkest days of the Great Depression. However, the scene has become a reality once again as America suffers a deep recession that has left millions out of work.

Alastair Jamieson   Telegraph.co.uk

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