It’s not hard to find evidence of the national recession locally. Long lines at the Virginia Employment Commission’s office in Galax have grown even longer with the December announcement that Gildan’s Hillsville plant would cease operations by the end of February, leaving 180 more local citizens without a job.

Bill Webb, Manager of the Galax VEC office, said the local unemployment rate is as high as he can ever remember.

“The lines show it. On Mondays and Tuesdays we have lines all the way out the door. There are just no jobs out there,” Webb said. “It’s been like this since Thanksgiving. People are out of work and the unemployment is going to be very high.”

And while Webb is encouraged by President-elect Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, he still doesn’t think things will get better in the foreseeable future.

“I would predict it will be at least two years before we see any kind of turnaround and then it depends on what the President and Congress do to stimulate the economy,” Webb said. “Something has to be done now. I believe something is going to be done because I heard Obama and (Speaker of the House Nancy) Pelosi say that they were going to put 2 million people to work immediately.”

Webb believes Obama and national officials will do that in a similar fashion to the late 1960s and early 70s when the federal government “bankrolled” people to work.

“They would put them to work in state, county, city and federal governments, and non-profit organizations to get them training and get them in a job, and pay for it out of federal funds,” Webb said. “I am pretty sure something like that will happen right after the President is inaugurated.”

For now, Webb said his staff has been working overtime on nights and weekends to keep up with the increased demand at the VEC Office.

“Just to accommodate these people we have been working every night until 8 p.m. keying claims. We come in on Sundays and work keying claims,” Webb said. “Our deputy and our deputy support folks are here every single night and all day Saturday, keying claims. That is how many claims we have out there.”

The Galax VEC Office suffered its own share of cutbacks last March when it lost 12 employees due to cutbacks in the state budget. Webb said his office has been authorized to hire three more employees, but there’s been no time to interview prospective employees because of the overwhelming number of unemployment claims.

“We are just doing anything and everything we can. We are open extra hours for the convenience of the people and we are working behind the scenes paying claims. We have cut people’s wait time when a check comes in to them from two weeks to three days, which is awesome and shows what kind of dedication we have to support these people,” Webb said. “We know how important it is to have a check in hand because they have to buy food, they have to pay rent and many other things. The only thing they have is that unemployment check, so we want to do everything we can to make that happen.”

As far as the Gildan plant closing, Webb said he has been to the plant to talk to the employees to tell them about their unemployment and school opportunities. Currently, Webb said the VEC is waiting for a trade petition to be approved. Webb expects the petition to be approved, most likely by the end of January. At that time, Webb said the VEC will have a mass meeting with Gildan’s employees to go over their insurance benefits and opportunities to go back to school to retrain for different jobs, as well as other benefits associated with the trade program.

“It all depends on when the Department of Labor approves or disapproves the trade petition,” Webb said. “I’m almost certain that will be approved, but then a lot of work goes into it after it is approved. The first thing is we have to get them all together to discuss all the benefits with them. It is critical we act quickly because of insurance.”