Sherry Asher has been actively looking for employment since she was let go from her office clerk job just after the first of January.

And she told me that, even though the economy was declining at the
time, her dismissal came as a complete surprise.

"It never crossed my mind," she recalls. "Then I went to work one day and was told, 'sorry, we're going to have to lay you off, things are getting slow'. I was really shocked."

And Asher, who lives in the Marrtown area, had only had that job for five months before she was laid off at the first of this year. The past eleven months have been a never-ending task of applications and disappointments, not to mention her frustration at being unemployed.

"The first couple of months you're laid off, it's OK, because you have the time off," she says. "But I'm the kind of person who likes to get up early to go to work and do my job. It's nice coming home at the end of the week and get a paycheck."

And for Parkersburg's Manpower office, it's a situation that's not only playing out with other clients, it also has plenty of history in West Virginia.

"That's what I've always found, that we're the last to feel the impact of the negative as well as the positive," says office manager Sandy Brown. "But there's always room for hope."

And hope is what Sherry Asher continues to rely on.

"Eventually, our economy will turn around. I know it's going to take time, but I think if we hang tough, things will eventually pull themselves out."

Sherry is single, with a degree in office administration. She does own and manage a small apartment complex, but that's just breaking even.

She does draw unemployment benefits, but that's just helping her pay bills.