The grim numbers arrive week after week, month after month, barely budging since the nation last commemorated Labor Day.

A year ago September, unemployment stood at 10.6 percent locally and 9.8 percent nationally. The news was only slightly better when the newest jobs data arrived last week.

On Wednesday, we learned that 9.5 percent of the area's work force is still collecting unemployment.

Two days later, the national figures came out: The U.S. jobless rate is now 9.6 percent despite the addition of 67,000 private sector jobs in August.

The full measure of the crisis lurks in the fine print of the federal and state databases.

More than 6.2 million of the nation's unemployed have been out of work six months or more and 2.4 million Americans now fall into the category of "marginally attached." In laymen's terms, that means they have given up the search for a new job.

So this Labor Day, the spotlight out of necessity is trained not on those who are gainfully employed. But on the 14.9 million Americans exiled from the work force.

They are not mere statistics that show up each month in the jobless reports.

They are friends, neighbors and loved ones.

And, as Karin Fowler, senior program manager with St. Louis Community College notes, "They all have stories."

Here are a few:

Shawn DeBruce

Shawn DeBruce assumed he would "roll" directly into another job after getting laid off as a driver for a national tire chain.

He had no reason to believe otherwise.

After all, every other time DeBruce received a pink slip — be it from the steel mills or other driving gigs — he had managed to land on his feet within weeks, if not days.

Having gone 17 months straight months without drawing a paycheck, DeBruce now understands how a layoff during the Great Recession differs from the past.

"My hands are tied behind my back," said the 43-year-old East St. Louis resident. "I can't do anything. I'm not even in a position where I can meet a nice, young lady because I don't have any money. The last 18 months have been pure hell."

Rest assured, DeBruce is taking care that the months ahead won't bring more of the same.

The path out of hell began when a cousin invoked the mantra of green jobs.

"He told me the environmental field is booming right now," DeBruce said, recalling the conversation.

"Two weeks later I was at the employment office, looking at the bulletin board and, lo behold, there it was — 'Environmental Field. Careers.'

"Bam!

"I thought, 'This must be my calling.'"

The calling led DeBruce to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where, earlier this summer, he earned the certification required to work as a wastewater operator in Missouri and Illinois.

In August, DeBruce moved to the next phase when he entered a program that next spring will earn him an associate's degree in water quality operations from Lewis & Clark College in Godfrey.

"Everybody wants to go green," DeBruce said. "It's a booming field."

The short-term objective, now, is to avoid going bust before becoming part of the boom.

Unemployment insurance only goes so far, he points out.

And the expense of a college education added to the price of housing, food and transportation is a killer.

"I'm always worried about my situation when I'm not employed," DeBruce said. "But it always seems like the good Lord sustains me."

Preparing for class last week, DeBruce desperately hoped his faith would come through again.

"Right now I need gas," he said. "And there's not enough money to put some in the tank so I can get to school."

Jeanne Redtman

Some kids like candy stores, others gravitate toward clothing or sporting goods outlets. Growing up in south St. Louis, Jeanne Redtman found comfort in shops that sell greeting cards.

So much so, that as a middle school student she had already identified her dream job. Redtman wanted to work for Hallmark.

Straight out of graduation from St. Louis University, the dream came true.

Her 18 years as an outside sales representative for Hallmark took Redtman to five cities around the country.

Along the way she met the man who would become her husband. Five years ago the dream got even better when the company transferred Redtman to an office in her hometown.

"It's the job I always wanted and I think in the back of my mind I thought I'd have it until I retired," Redtman said. "Then I got the phone call."

There had been rumblings that trouble was on the horizon. Its business model rocked by e-cards and online shopping, Hallmark announced plans in early 2009 to trim its work force by up to 700 jobs.

On Aug. 1, Redtman became one the casualties.

Thirteen months later, the 40-something Redtman still rises by 6:30 a.m. in the O'Fallon. Mo., home she shares with her husband, Rick, a machinist.

Maintaining a routine, she says, is key to maintaining equilibrium in a quest for employment, which consumes six to eight hours each and every day.

The process has so far netted about 15 interviews and a handful of offers for sales positions.

She has learned, as have other job seekers in an economy where the ratio of candidates to employment openings is still nearly 5 to 1, that it's a seller's market.

Redtman, who earned about $60,000 when she left Hallmark, is being asked to accept positions that pay half that or less.

"I realize I probably won't make the same salary," she said. "But they won't even meet you halfway."

Redtman says she knows that the prospect of lifelong employment security — like her dream job — is probably gone forever.

"I hear constantly that I need to be prepared to do this (search for a job) five more times," Redtman said. "I think that's what scares me the most."

Durwood Woolridge

Durwood Woolridge had every reason to believe he had beaten the odds.

Rebounding from a three-year stretch of depression-fueled homelessness triggered in no small part by the untimely deaths of his three siblings, the Marine Corps veteran landed a job in 2008 with an area business that supplied linens and other materials to American Airlines.

In addition to working, Woolridge seized the opportunity to follow through on another long-delayed objective: He is now a second-year business administration major at Harris-Stowe State University.

"I had the grades to do it when I got out of high school," said the 43-year-old St. Louis native, the father of two grown children. "But back then you didn't need a college degree like you do now."

The business that supplied Woolridge with the job closed its doors in February, shortly before the carrier slashed service in and out of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

Suddenly out of work, Woolridge hoped to find work preparing income taxes.

"But even (tax preparers) had a bad season," Wooldridge said.

Fortunately, he added, "I was there (at his last job) long enough to qualify for unemployment."

Collecting benefits provided Woolridge the option of accelerating and enhancing his Harris-Stowe education with a computer class at the Metropolitan Education and Training Center in Wellston.

Woolridge is now on course to receive a bachelor's degree in two years. Before moving on to graduate school, Woolridge says re-entering the work force will be his first priority.

Job security very much on his mind, Woolridge is gunning for a position he says he believes is layoff proof: an Internal Revenue Service agent.

"I'm happy about my prospects," he said. "Even if I don't make it to the moon, I know I'll fall off amongst the stars."

Mary and Dan Elliott

The plan seemed sound:

After 25 years with AT&T, Mary Elliott would set the lump sum from her buyout in an investment account and return to work in a retail or clerical position.

Only 56 when she left her $22-per-hour position as an information services clerk at AT&T in 2007, Elliott estimated she had a minimum of 10 if not more employable years ahead of her.

But unforeseen circumstances proved her wrong.

For starters, the stock market plummeted, depleting a good portion of her nest egg. Health care expenses pretty much took care of the rest.

The equity that Mary and Dan Elliott accumulated in the Oakville home they have owned for 20 years could have offset some of the losses, were it not for the plunge in the real estate market that has since left them owing $25,000 more than the house was worth.

Finally, there was Mary Elliott's belief that another job was as close as the nearest Walmart, Kohl's or Macy's.

"I've been turned down six times alone by Walmart," Elliott said.

Because she doesn't collect unemployment, Elliott, now 59, is one of thousands of Americans that go uncounted on the monthly U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report.

There have been a couple part-time jobs over the past three years with medical offices. But the economy being what it is, Elliott became expendable.

The Elliotts say their sons help out as best they can. But essentially, the family's financial load falls squarely on the shoulders of Dan Elliott, a 62-year-old construction worker making $40,000 a year.

"We always had a hard time even when we were making good money," Dan Elliott said.

Now, with their revenue stream halved, the Elliott's garage now overflows with used clothing, videocassettes, motorcycles and the other bric-a-brac that regularly ends up for sale at the end of the driveway.

"It's the only way we can make money," Mary Elliott said. "We're pretty much living off credit cards."

Given her record as a loyal employee who remained with a single company for over a quarter of a century, Elliott is pretty sure she knows why she has so far been unable to land even a minimum wage job.

"It's getting to the point that I can tell they think I'm too old just by the way they look at me," she said.

Given the precarious state of the construction business, Dan Elliott, with work-related surgeries on his knees and a shoulder, worries that his job will go next.

"If that happens, we're tent living," he half-heartedly joked.

At least, Dan Elliott added, some of the savings set aside from the AT&T buyout remains.

"What do we have left?" he asked his wife. "$76?"

Mary Elliott moved her head from side-to-side.

"I think we're down to $53," she replied. "I spent some of it."