Rockland

David Newman of Nyack, a lawyer who specializes in trade law and has been unemployed since 2009, looks over a binder filled with notes of prospective employers. He is building a network of contacts for himself. (Ricky Flores /The Journal News)

Editor’s Note: David Newman of Nyack is one of six bloggers working with The Journal News and LoHud.com as part of our Jobless Recovery series, which began in today’s print editions. The 12-part series examines the job market and the impact unemployment has had on the Lower Hudson Valley. As the region climbs out of the recession, some sectors and businesses are expected to grow. Read stories of survival and learn about opportunities over the next 11 Sundays in The Journal News. Read more at LoHud.com/joblessrecovery.

David Newman

With the new year, the house is empty again. My wife has returned to work and I move about in the eerie quiet of the winter morning. In fact, I see in myself a ghostly presence, an apparition who inhabits a netherworld, neither here nor there. Occasionally, my visage will appear at the gym or the supermarket, but I am unmoored from the real corporeal world of work.

This limbo in which I live is one of the great curses of career transition. Though it is a complaint repeated by some retirees who can’t find a place for themselves, transition is categorically different. Even those like my Dad, who did not choose retirement willingly, eventually come to grips with their status. They settle into routines, reinvigorate old friendships, rediscover long loved hobbies and, if financially secure, vacation on their own schedule.

In this transition, I cannot rest. I’m too young and lack the necessary wherewithal. And so I engage in an anxious quest to anchor myself, to find my next niche. In this blog, I’ll discuss the many different aspects of this search. Subjects will include self marketing, “the new work,” job search work teams and networking and “helpful” suggestions from friends and family, among other things.

In the meantime, my MS Outlook box is full of job leads sent from online corporate and career websites. Are these real jobs or are they obligatory postings to satisfy company employment policies? Like the limbo world of a career in- transition, the cyber world reveals few solid answers.

About the writer
David Newman, 51, was former in-house counsel at an international technology company. He specialized in regulatory compliance and public policy, with an emphasis on the international supply chain to the United States. In fact, David was highly involved in the discussions surrounding the development of regulatory rules designed to prevent terrorists from using instruments of the international supply chain to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the country.

After sixteen years with the company, including efforts that saved tens of millions of dollars, David’s business group was eliminated as part of a much larger, recession induced series of cost saving measures.

In this jobless recovery, David’s blog posts are designed to help him and his “in-transition” counterparts recover a spirit of belonging, perspective and sometimes humor.