Not only are there fewer jobs in the Wichita area, but more people are competing for them than ever before. Susan Randall has been out of work since October 2008, when she was laid off from her job as program liaison at Hawker Beechcraft.
Since then, she has spent hundreds of hours searching online and filled a 4-inch binder full of job applications and has started another. She has gotten a few interviews, but mostly, she's gotten nothing.
That's because between November 2008 and November 2009, the ranks of those looking unsuccessfully for work in the Wichita area swelled by 11,000. They are why Wichita's unemployment rate rose from 4.5 percent to 7.9 percent.
But, state figures show the total number of people working in the Wichita area only fell by about 5,000.
So who are the other 6,000 people?
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