S. Orange County Awash in Clerical Jobs, Firm Says

The rapid development of south Orange County during the past year is turning the area into a mecca for job-hunting clerical workers, a new survey suggests.

A healthy 46% of employers in the south county intend to increase their permanent clerical staffs during the first half of 1989--the highest projected hiring rate in the state--according to a survey by Thomas Temporaries, a clerical employment agency headquartered in Irvine.

And the rest of Orange County isn’t far behind, with 32% of north county employers planning to add permanent clerical help between January and June.

Statewide, 27% of the 1,496 businesses surveyed said they anticipated hiring new permanent clerical workers in the first half of the new year, up from 26% at the beginning of 1988.

The firm said that 8% of employers statewide anticipate some cutbacks and that 64% expect staffing to remain unchanged.

To obtain the Orange County data, Thomas surveyed 197 companies and government agencies. Of those, 98 were in the south county--generally defined as the area south and east of the Costa Mesa Freeway--and 99 in the north.

A year ago, south Orange County employers also led the state in expectations for clerical hiring, with 38% anticipating staff increases.

“Companies in Orange County are just desperate for employable (clerical) people,” said Kathy Bolte, an area vice president for Thomas Temporaries.

“We’re not turning out enough people who are skilled in those general clerical areas. Also, that southern Orange County market is quite an affluent area. When you’re getting kids out of high school whose allowances are more than $5 an hour, it’s hard to entice them to come to work at a company that’s paying $5 an hour on an entry level.”

The projected growth in statewide demand for secretaries, receptionists and clerks comes on top of an existing crunch that has left some employers desperate to hire office workers.

The strongest demand in Orange County will be for general clerks--wanted by 33% of the north county businesses and 25% of those in the south--followed by typists with word-processing equipment skills--sought by 29% of the businesses in south county and 24% of those in the north. Then come accounting clerks, general typists and receptionists with typing and/or switchboard skills.

Firms Are Desperate

So desperate are some firms for skilled clerical help that they go far beyond traditional recruiting techniques.

Allstate Insurance’s state headquarters in Brea recently sent letters to customers throughout Orange County asking if they knew of anyone looking for clerical work and urging them to refer their job-seeking acquaintances to Allstate.

“There is definitely a shortage, and I think most corporations are experiencing that,” said Sally K. Faddis, an assistant vice president at California Federal Savings & Loan in Los Angeles.

California Federal, which has struggled to fill its clerical ranks for more than 2 years, went so far as to advertise its October secretarial job fair on several area radio stations. Recruiters went home the weekend before the fair with 100 flyers apiece encouraging job hunters to visit the company’s mid-Wilshire headquarters.

“We put them up in dry cleaners, laundromats--wherever we thought there’d be a flow of people,” Faddis said.

The new Thomas Temporaries office hiring survey predicts that job growth from January to June in many parts of the Southland will be the strongest since the firm began doing such studies 3 years ago.

Above State Average

Stronger job growth than the statewide average is also projected for Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego.

Below-average job growth, however, is expected in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, Long Beach, northern San Diego County and Bakersfield.

Hiring expectations in San Bernardino are about the same as the state average.

The margin of error in the survey, conducted by the Marketing Consortium in San Diego, is plus or minus 3.5%.

In Los Angeles, the growing demand for secretaries and other clericals--fueled by an influx of out-of-state and foreign banks, accounting firms and law firms--has run smack into a decline in the number of skilled people looking for clerical jobs, said Jack A. Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

The result: a gradual increase in office workers’ wages.

“We have run through the baby-boomers--they are all in the market--and we have a decline in the number of entry-level people,” Kyser said. “That means the people who have developed the skills--the ones who have a good track record--they can go out there and do very well for themselves.”

FIRMS’ EXPECTED CHANGE IN PERMANENT CLERICAL EMPLOYEES

First Half First Half 1989 1988 South Orange County Increase 46% 38% Decrease 8 10 Same 46 50 North Orange County Increase 32 18 Decrease 5 3 Same 63 78 Statewide Increase 27 26 Decrease 8 8 Same 64 65

Source: Thomas Temporaries survey of employers