SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET : A SPECIAL REPORT ON EMPLOYMENT TRENDS : INDUSTRIES & OCCUPATIONS : AEROSPACE : MORE JOBS, BUT FIRMS ARE SELECTIVE

The aerospace job applicants come early in the morning, forming long lines that snake through the lobby of the modern suburban office building.

Amid pastel furniture and cheery office decor, they wait patiently for a “prescreening” that will determine in a few minutes whether they merit further consideration.

This is the scene day after day at Douglas Aircraft Co.’s new employment center in Lakewood, where more than 43,000 people have come so far this year looking for a job. On one morning after Douglas won a big Air Force contract, 16,000 people lined up outside the employment office.

McDonnell Douglas is hiring, and the aerospace community is responding. The Douglas Aircraft unit in Long Beach hires 180 new factory and professional employees each week for its sprawling complex of aircraft facilities in Long Beach and Torrance. Douglas added 4,000 new jobs over the past year, not including hiring for turnover. Its work force totals 28,900.

Douglas is unique, however. The big aerospace buildup that came with the Reagan Administration’s defense policies has largely spent itself, and now contractors are mainly concerned with holding on to the business that they picked up a few years ago. The defense procurement budget, after adjusting for inflation, is off by more than 15% over the last two years.

Nonetheless, Southern California aerospace employers are doing better than they had expected in heading off a major (or even a minor) downturn in business. That’s partly due to a huge backlog of federal funds that remains in the long pipeline from Washington to the defense industry.

But it also reflects a series of successful contract wins by California aerospace companies. In addition, a strong commercial jetliner market is helping to pick up slack just as the military aircraft market is leveling off.

Personnel executives for a number of aerospace firms in Southern California say they had expected the market to be very weak this year, but that they are now experiencing difficulty finding enough qualified people.

“In June, we signed a major production contract with the Marines and Air Force that means we will add 350 people to our payroll,” said Larry N. Colson, vice president of human resources at Litton Data Systems in Van Nuys. “I went into this employment effort thinking it would be a soft market. That isn’t what we found.”

That sentiment is echoed by executive and professional search firms that have a broad view of the market.

“A year ago, my outlook was pessimistic,” said Sanford A. Lechtick, chief executive of National Recruiters Corp. in Woodland Hills. “A lot of people, though, are hiring in both the defense and commercial aerospace sectors. The pie has gotten smaller, but some of these companies have gotten better” at winning competitions.

Indeed, the long-term fortunes of the Southern California aerospace industry took a leap late last year, when two prime contracts for the Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter were awarded to Northrop and Lockheed, ensuring that the region will get a large share of that $60-billion monster program. No matter which firm wins, ATF is likely to create well over 10,000 new jobs.

The potential for growth in spacecraft projects could develop into a major boon for California as well. About 66% of all U.S. spacecraft are built on the West Coast.

Two Southern California firms, Rockwell International in Downey and McDonnell Douglas Astronautics in Huntington Beach, are competing for the largest share of the Space Station program. Contracts will be awarded later this year. The National Aerospace Plane, the so-called Orient Express, has five contractors in competition, three of which are in Southern California.

The Strategic Defense Initiative has proven lucrative for California as well. Although SDI projects are individually smaller and less visible than many Pentagon efforts, the overall program is already so large that several contractors have set up special divisions to conduct SDI work. The majority of the top 10 SDI contractors are in California.

Rockwell is building another space shuttle as a result of the disaster last year that destroyed the Challenger.

All of these programs are helping to offset those early Reagan Administration programs that are now winding down. Total aerospace employment in Los Angeles County was 310,000 in July, up about 3% from a year ago, according to the state Department of Employment Development.

In the important aircraft segment, employment was 136,000, up from 129,800 a year ago. This was despite major layoffs at Rockwell’s North American Aircraft unit, which lost 5,442 jobs in Los Angeles on the B-1 bomber program. Employment in missiles and spacecraft increased to 18,500 from 17,500 last year.

No downturn is expected in aircraft employment, which is projected to grow statewide from the current 176,000 jobs to 182,200 by next year, according to David Hensley, director of the California model at the UCLA Business Forecasting Project.

The majority of large aerospace employers in Southern California indicate that they expect to either hire additional employees or remain stable.

General Dynamics’ Valley Systems division is growing quickly. The unit just recently signed an agreement to begin production of the Navy’s Rolling Airframe Missile, and it expects to begin production soon on a new version of the Army’s Stinger missile. The division expects to have 5,000 employees by 1990, up from 3,100 currently.

TRW is adding 1,450 new jobs over the next year to its 20,336 aerospace jobs. The company is leasing space around the Los Angeles area, having outgrown its Space Park facilities in Redondo Beach.

And Douglas expects to add another 4,000 employees by 1990 at its facilities, bringing its employment to 33,000 at Long Beach and Torrance. In addition to commercial jetliners, the company has two important military aircraft programs, the T-45 Navy trainer and the C-17 Air Force transport, that have received strong congressional support in the last year.

Some projections suggest that even the long-term outlook for the aerospace industry is a healthy one. The UCLA forecasting model includes some gutsy employment projections out to the year 2004. By then, UCLA says, aircraft production will employ an estimated 205,200 in California.

The ability to continue growing will depend on future defense budgets, how well U.S. firms can compete in the world market for passenger aircraft, and the relative success of California companies in the defense market. Hensley, the UCLA economist, expects the weak dollar to substantially help aerospace exports, particularly electronics. That would be welcome relief for the commercial jetliner producers.

Aerospace exports hit a record high of $19 billion in 1986, but aerospace imports soared 32% to $8.1 billion. It meant that the aerospace trade surplus dropped 14%. But aerospace analyst Wolfgang Demisch of First Boston Corp. believes that some of the world market share lost by U.S producers will be partially regained due to the lower U.S. dollar.

In the meantime, the aerospace industry will need thousands of new employees to cover attrition, even if the market does not grow. Personnel executives stress experience and technical specialization.

A larger percentage of jobs every year are going to professionals and technical people. At Litton Data Systems, for example, technical people will get 90% of the jobs. At TRW, over half will be technical.

Salaries for aerospace engineers range from $30,000 for a college graduate to roughly $75,000 for a senior scientist with an advanced degree, according to human resource executives. The most sought-after specialties include aircraft structural engineers, electro-optical engineers, microprocessor designers and software experts in signal processing.

Among factory employees in high demand are builders of jigs and fixtures, which are special tools used to produce aircraft, spacecraft and missiles.

Despite the opportunities, experts say that aerospace companies are being more picky about who they hire because the industry is under greater pressure than ever to contain costs and improve quality.

“In some of our departments, they are holding out for the right people, even if they have to work overtime in the meantime,” said Ronald Kimball, administrator for professional employment at Douglas. “They feel they are better off waiting for the right guy to come along.”

No doubt. Douglas has received several hundred thousand applications so far this year. In an average week, the employment center passes on to management about 300 resumes of individuals who are considered for professional jobs. In a typical week, 50 professional jobs are filled.