Correction to this article

IN A Manhattan park on March 31st the Unemployment Olympics took place. Participants competed in events such as the “Telephone Toss” and “Pin the Blame on the Bosses”. But other unemployed people are looking for charity work to occupy their time. Many non-profit organisations are seeing an increase in people looking to help. Even before the economic crisis, AmeriCorps, a programme which takes young volunteers for a year, was turning away two applicants for every one it accepted. Teach for America, which sends recent college graduates to teach in needy schools, saw 35,000 students apply for up to 4,000 openings this year. In February VolunteerNYC.org, New York's public-service site, saw a 27% increase in visitors compared with a year ago.

Non-profit organisations now have 9.4m employees and 4.7m full-time volunteers nationwide. They make up 11% of the American workforce, more than the car and financial industries combined, according to “The Quiet Crisis”, a report by Civic Enterprises and the Democratic Leadership Council. Demand for their services has increased dramatically in recent months. The United Way has seen a 68% increase in the number of calls for food, shelter and warm clothing.

Corporate America, too, is joining in. Companies such as Timberland and PricewaterhouseCoopers allow employees time off for public service. Others, like Target, are going into partnership with non-profit groups to provide pro bono marketing and financial advice. “These times demand that we develop a new social contract,” says Laysha Ward of Target. The Taproot Foundation is trying to bring the pro bono ethic to other professions by putting corporate America in touch with charity groups that need their expertise.

Thousands of lawyers have been laid off in recent months. Law Shucks (lawshucks.com), a website that tracks layoffs from big law firms, puts the casualties since January at 9,946, 4,046 of them lawyers and the rest support staff. Job offers to graduates have often been rescinded or deferred; salaries, even of established partners, are being cut. But some law firms are encouraging the underemployed or deferred to do pro bono legal work for a public-interest group for a time. Some are paid monthly stipends or are offered a portion, often a third, of their salary. Bain & Company, a consulting firm, is also encouraging deferred recruits to do pro bono work.

On March 31st Congress overwhelmingly passed the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act. This bill, the most sweeping overhaul of the national-service programme since it was launched in 1993, will devote $5.7 billion over five years to expanding or creating national-service programmes, including tripling the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 positions to 250,000. In 2008 AmeriCorps members mobilised 2.2m community volunteers, so this expansion could affect 7m people.

The new law will also create “encore fellowships”, which will tap the skills and experience of older Americans for second careers in education, health care and non-profit management. A January survey by the AARP, which represents 40m Americans aged 50 and above, found that 73% of those who responded preferred to give time rather than money.





Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the Unemployment Olympics took place in Brooklyn. In fact they were held in Manhattan's Tomkins Square Park. This article was corrected on April 8th, 2009.