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Playlist: Jobs and Unemployment

Compiled By: PRX Editors

Credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/62518311@N00/74855552/">Daquella Manera</a>

Image by: Daquella Manera

How has the worst recession since the 1930s affected the employment market and people's relationship to work?

Plus, moving stories about different types of workers and their struggles and strategies for getting along.

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Hard Time on the Unemployment Line

From Afi Scruggs | 00:05:53

A look at the challenges faced by out-of-work African American male ex-offenders.

A New (Old) Kind of Work

From Zak Rosen | 00:07:21

Rust belt cities like Detroit, Michigan are struggling. The tax base has been drying up for decades. Vacant homes litter once strong, middle-class neighborhoods. Young people are dropping out of school at astounding rates. In many ways the system is broken. But despite Detroit’s shortcomings, or maybe because of them, residents are bucking conventions and going about fixing the city without help from the powers that be. Independent producer Zak Rosen recently met an ornamental metal worker who is doing just that.

Looking for Work: A History of Unemployment

From BackStory with the American History Guys | 00:54:00

This Labor Day, Americans will commemorate the legendary gumption of the American worker by taking some much-deserved time off from work. Americans, that is, who are lucky enough to still have a job.

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Working the Night Shift

From WFUV | 00:59:02

WFUV Fordham catches up with local night shift workers to get their perspective on life after dark, balancing family obligations, and the big question -- when do they sleep? This sound-rich hour introduces listeners to a colorful cast of night-shift workers, from police officers to firefighters to a singing sanitation worker.

That Job Sucked Anyway

From Megan Hall | 00:34:06

Even in this horrible economy, some jobs no one can remember with fondness. Here are stories about such positions...

The Jobs Plan

From Hearing Voices | Part of the The Plan series | 00:29:03

Eclectic mix of pieces related to jobs, including the sound of postal workers canceling stamps, a first-person account of a worldwide job hunt ("I had like 800 jobs, I never felt shame"), and a spoken job-interview poem. Extremely entertaining.

"Diamond" Jimmy Roy

From Long Haul Productions | Part of the American Worker Series series | 00:19:00

First broadcast on "This American Life" in 1999, but especially relevant in today's economic climate. Once, Jimmy Roy owned half the businesses in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a steel town just outside Pittsburgh. Braddock's decline paralleled Jimmy's. But he managed to remain optimistic to the end, promoting positive thinking and lamenting negativity.

Living on the Beach in Santa Barbara

From World Vision Report | 00:10:33

With the economy in crisis, American families once considered middle income are now living on the edge. Some have lost their homes. And some of those without homes now find themselves waking up each morning in an unlikely place. Tena Rubio spent the day with one such family in Santa Barbara, California.

Bible Salesman

From Long Haul Productions | Part of the American Worker Series series | 00:10:14

Former door-to-door Bible salesman Jim "The Rabbit" Baker, featured in the classic 1969 Maysles Brothers documentary "Salesman," explains the secrets of his now defunct occupation. First broadcast on Weekend Edition Sunday in 2000.

On The Line: Union Actors In New York

From Eevin Hartsough | 00:09:46

New York actors face ridiculous odds trying to get work, but persevere nonetheless. Audition horror stories, the will to go, and more...

The Future of Farming in Vermont -- with slideshow!

From Jenny Attiyeh | 00:09:09

About 40 years ago, farms were thick on the ground in Andover, a rural town in southern Vermont. Today, 75-year-old Lydia Ratcliff’s Lovejoy Brook Farm is the last working farm still in operation. But can it survive much longer?

Healthy Jobs for Low-income Women

From Making Contact | 00:07:32

A business model that creates worker-owned green businesses and healthy jobs for low-income women.

Ex-convicts struggle to enter bleak job market

From Patrick De Oliveira | 00:05:48

Unemployment--one of the main contributing factors to recidivism--is a growing problem for ex-convicts. The recession has hit them hard, as their job applications are often placed at the bottom of an ever-growing pile. A look at the legal barriers and discrimination faced by this less-than-welcome population.

"Hard Times Harder In the Motor City" by S. Hulett

From Michigan Radio Economy Special | 00:04:11

A look the epicenter of the recession, and how this downturn compares with previous ones.

This I Believe - Kenneth Feinberg

From This I Believe | Part of the This I Believe series | 00:04:00

As the Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg had to allocate money based on the profession of those who died in the attack. "The law required that I give more money to the stockbroker, the bond trader and the banker, than to the waiter, the policeman, the fireman and the soldier at the Pentagon," Feinberg says. Now, he wants the law to treat all victims as equally valued, regardless of job.

Haitian immigrants and the South Florida Economy

From NPR Economic Training Project | 00:03:30

With around 80,000 Haitians expected to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that will allow them to legally work and live in South Florida, what impact will that have on the local economy, where jobless rates are already at their highest in decades?