Washington (AFP)

"I've never been in such a difficult situation," sighs Eleanore Fernandez.

Like one in three unemployed Americans, it has now been more than six months since she lost her job, a long-term unemployment that is expected to leave lasting consequences in the labor market.

This mother of a 13-year-old teenager lost her job as an executive assistant in March, as the pandemic spread to the United States, first in California where she lives, then in the rest of the country.

Her husband, a professional musician, also found himself inactive.

"I am digging more and more into my savings, but I will soon reach the end," she worries, as she will find herself without income at the end of December.

Unemployment is paid, depending on the state, for three to six months, and three additional months have been granted by the federal government since April, in the face of Covid-19.

This aid will end on December 26, unless the elected representatives of Congress quickly reach an agreement to extend them, without waiting for the arrival at the White House of the new president Joe Biden, on January 20, and his secretary to the Trésor, Janet Yellen, a progressive unemployment economist.

It is urgent, because millions of people risk falling into poverty, and losing all links with the world of work, warn NGOs.

Many may indeed have to seek "other solutions, such as turning to the informal economy", explains Michele Evermore, of the National Employment Law Project (NELP).

- "Any job" -

In October, there were nearly 3.6 million people out of work in the United States for at least six months.

This represents 1.2 million more people than in September, "the largest increase on record", underlines Michele Evermore.

This jump corresponds to people made redundant in March and April, when the country came to a standstill in an attempt to slow the progress of the pandemic.

November's job market data will be released on Friday, but the increase should be even larger, according to the social expert.

Because the hires are far from being sufficiently numerous.

Eleanore Fernandez's job searches have so far been unsuccessful.

She now says she is ready to "accept any job, or go deliver groceries or whatever, to be able to pay the bills."

This is exactly the fear of economists: "workers without a job for a long time can lose their contact with the labor market, lose their skills", noted the president of the American Central Bank (Fed) Jerome Powell, the November 17 in a virtual conversation.

"We are concerned about the long-term damage to the productive capacity of the economy," he added.

The labor market, before the crisis, was approaching full employment.

It will take years to return to comparable levels.

And even when business resumes, the economy will be different.

Jobs in the service sector will be fewer, replaced by those in a growing technological sector.

Millions of workers will have to be trained, which will take time and be costly.

- Inequality -

But the greatest risk linked to long-term unemployment is the widening of existing inequalities, notes Michele Evermore, referring to African-Americans victims of the "syndrome of the first dismissed, last hired".

Thus, the crisis strikes while "some communities have not recovered from the previous recession, such as Flint or Detroit", cities of Michigan (northeast) which had particularly suffered ten years ago.

The images of families evicted from their homes, under the snow, furniture on the sidewalk, had marked the spirits.

"It is not only the people who are unemployed who are affected, but their entire community because they do not have this money to spend it in local stores, which end up closing," he said. -she.

This is what Nadra Enzi, an African-American who lives in New Orleans (Louisiana) observes around him.

He has been unemployed since April, like many people around him, and mentions "more suicide attempts, (...) more domestic violence, more consultations with the psychologist".

He goes further, arguing that "the pandemic is also used to racial discrimination", and claims to have lost his job as a security officer because of his skin color.

“It's a whole new field of civil rights that must emerge,” he regrets.

© 2020 AFP