FENTON, Mo. — More than a year has passed since a chemical manufacturer laid off Brian Gregory as part of a cost-cutting move.
The 57-year-old has applied for about 100 jobs in his field of environmental compliance and safety. He’s had a handful of interviews, but no offers.
Gregory, who lives in Fenton, worked for nine years at the Dyno Nobel Inc. plant in Louisiana, Missouri, that produces nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. As the plant’s site environmental coordinator, he made $90,000 a year. He provided technical expertise on environmental issues, including working with government officials on permits that enabled Dyno Nobel to reduce air pollution emissions of nitrogen oxide by 99.5%.
“I didn’t realize how great the salary was until I started looking for another one,” he said.
The labor shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic that has empowered many workers hasn’t enabled Gregory to return to a high-paying job. In fact, his experience is that the heavily publicized demand for workers largely is confined to lower-paying jobs.
After Gregory’s unemployment benefits expired, he applied for a part-time job at The Home Depot and the national chain snapped him up. At the Brentwood store, he’s working 20 to 25 hours a week in the hardware department for $13 an hour.
“I’ve decided that all of that talk about tons of jobs open and companies that can’t find people to work is about entry-level people. At Home Depot, they practically gave me the job before they saw me,” he said.
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