Job Prospects for County Exceed National Outlook

Job prospects in Orange County for the first three months of 1986 will be better than the national average but not as good as they were a year ago, according to a survey of area employers by Manpower Inc., a major temporary-help service.

Manpower’s employment outlook survey of 60 county employers found that 17% of them plan to increase staffs in the first quarter of next year while 5% plan to reduce staffs. The rest either anticipate no change or are unsure of their needs.

The survey is part of the company’s annual national poll of 12,000 employers. The national survey found that 19% of the employers polled intend to hire more employees while 13% plan to cut employee ranks.

Last year, 20% of the Orange County employers polled by Manpower said they would be hiring during the first quarter while 5% planned cutbacks. Milwaukee, Wis.-based Manpower, which conducts a number of surveys each quarter, does not follow up to determine if the employers’ plans are realized.

The first quarter of the calendar year usually is the slowest quarter nationwide for new hiring, especially in the wholesale-retail field where businesses shed their heavy load of extra holiday workers, said Marjorie Bartok, manager of Manpower’s Orange County office.

Layoffs Expected

Based on the survey, Manpower predicts job opportunities in Orange County to open up in the durable goods, wholesale-retail, finance and services sectors, she said. Layoffs are expected by manufacturers of non-durable goods, she said.

The predictions are similar to recent forecasts by John J. Balles, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Speaking before a group of businessmen in Orange County, Balles said the economic outlook for California next year is good in such areas as aerospace and defense and poor in such areas as agriculture and forestry.

“The outlook for the Los Angeles-Orange County area is brighter than for the state as a whole because strong sectors such as defense figure more prominently locally, while just the opposite is true for a weak sector such as agriculture,” he said.

“This mix of strong and stable sectors should provide Southern California with continued, if moderate, economic growth,” Balles said.