Those Without Jobs Help Counselors Hang On to Theirs
Mark Alch, an Irvine employment consultant, is getting more last-minute notices about layoffs at his client companies these days. One recent Wednesday, he received a fax informing him that an Orange County hospital planned to lay off 10 workers the following Monday.
He quickly asked three of his outplacement job counselors to clear their calenders and prepare for the task of soothing angry workers and helping them find new jobs.
As the economy continues to weaken and layoffs rise, companies that provide employee counseling and job search services are benefiting from brisker business. Alch, a senior vice president at the Irvine office of Drake Beam Morin Inc., a New York-based outplacement consulting firm, said he has 25% more executives and at least 75% more lower-level people using his services than last year.
The increase is making for busier days. “We very rarely get a call saying, by the way, in three months we’re going to do some downsizing,” Alch said.
His office is one of about 30 outplacement firms in the Southland feeling the effects of growing joblessness in the aerospace and defense, electronics, financial services and other industries.
Bill Ellermeyer, senior vice president of New York-based Lee Hecht Harrison Inc.’s office in Irvine, said his firm has seen an increasing number of layoffs in 1990 and more senior management job cuts. Although senior managers are finding jobs, it is taking longer: an average of 6.5 months compared to 5.8 months a year ago, he said.
Outplacement firms report that corporate cutbacks began to rise in the fall of 1989 and have accelerated in 1990. Lee Hecht’s New York office predicts that they will continue through next summer.
“Nearly all industries are downsizing,” said Robert Hecht, the company’s co-chairman. “Even blue chip companies and firms that are not in trouble are revamping operations and finances.”
Robert McCarthy, president of a Century City outplacement firm, said some senior managers laid off from large corporations are settling for jobs with smaller firms or starting new careers. One former manager of a solar products company, for example, decided to open a video store in Ventura County.
Some big corporations have hired outplacement firms to prepare their employees for job cuts.
Alch, of Drake Beam, was hired by General Dynamics, the giant defense contractor, to help plan for the consolidation of its Pomona and Rancho Cucamonga plants. General Dynamics has said it will lay off 1,500 to 2,000 people in the Los Angeles area by the end of 1991.
The project presents some special problems because General Dynamics notified employees of its layoff plan so far in advance. “Your best performers are the people who will bolt first during a downsizing, and the people who remain will be jittery,” he said. “It’s up to us to be on site, talking to people, measuring their mentality, to keep up internal morale.”
But Alch warns against looking for jobs with competitors. “It’s easy for competitors to squeeze that individual like an orange and throw away the rind,” he said.
