San Diego Job Losses Lower Turnover Rate
The recession has prompted a relatively high number of layoffs at San Diego County companies and pushed employee turnover down to record lows, an annual survey by the Compensation Practices Assn. of San Diego County says.
The survey of 51 high-tech, manufacturing and research firms in the county showed that the number of jobs among member firms fell 6.1% in February from the corresponding month the year before.
Average annual employee turnover at the 51 firms during 1990 fell to 13.8%, the “lowest annual percentage in the history of the study” that dates back to 1979, said association founder N. Bruce Ferris.
Early in 1990, the association’s members predicted that employee turnover, which traditionally decreases during tough economic times, would dip during 1990 as the economy slowed. The turnover rate, Ferris said, is measured by adding all employee departures, with the exception of layoffs, and dividing that total by the average annual job total at a given employer.
The glum survey results were matched by a Manpower Temporary Services employment survey that was released earlier this month. Phil Blair, executive officer of Manpower’s San Diego operations, described the employment survey as “the most negative one that we’ve had in the 13 years that I’ve been involved in the survey.”
According to Manpower’s survey, just 5% of respondents intended to increase their staffs during the second quarter of the year, while 17% planned to reduce personnel, Blair said. Nearly 80% of respondents indicated that they would “stay at current work-force levels,” Blair said.
That relatively grim outlook is in contrast to the normal “pickup in hiring momentum from the first-quarter lull, Blair said. A year ago, for example, 30% of respondents to Manpower’s survey forecast a hiring upswing, and just 2% expected cutbacks.
Blair, however, suggested that the dire economic outlook will change for the better because of the successful conclusion to the Persian Gulf War.
“I’m anxious to do a third-quarter survey because I see a real turnaround in attitudes” following the war’s conclusion, Blair said. “People are feeling good about their country, the products made here. . . . I think San Diego has seen the worst of the recession.”
The most recent survey results “were skewed by the Kuwaiti situation, which was really heating up (as the survey was being conducted) and the fact that the federal government had just begun to use the R word,” Blair said, referring to recession. “There was a really uncomfortable, very negative feeling in the San Diego (employment market).”
Blair pointed to one Manpower customer who, in February, laid off 63 temporaries when production was far outstripping demand. That company since has hired about 40 temporaries back.
“When you start to see San Diego’s economy beginning to pick up, people start to rehire temporaries,” Blair said. “They typically hire temporaries before bringing on more (full-time) employees.”
“People usually don’t fire people until they have to, but they don’t hire them back until much later either,” said Max Schetter, general manager of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. “That makes unemployment a lagging factor” during economic recoveries, Schetter said.
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER RATES
Year Rate 1990 13.8% 1989 16.0% 1988 15.6% 1987 15.1% 1986 15.3% 1985 16.8% 1984 15.1% 1983 14.0% 1982 15.7% 1981 21.8% 1980 23.4% 1979 27.9%
Source: Compensation Practices Assn. of San Diego County
