REGIONAL REPORT : Wanted: Thousands of Jobs : Local Employment Services on Lookout--for Themselves

So many job hunters. So few new jobs.

With the Southern California unemployment rate hovering at frightening heights and some of the region’s biggest industries mired in severe slumps, the local job market is way out of kilter.

While that’s devastating news for thousands of people without work, it also means trouble for everyone in the business of matching job candidates with available positions: employment agencies, outplacement firms and even executive headhunters.

“If anybody tells you they’re doing well, they’re not telling the truth,” said Lynne Mesmer, owner of Newport Personnel and Newport Temporaries in Newport Beach. “People just aren’t hiring. They’re keeping their staffing to bare-bones levels.”

The weakness of the job market was underscored Friday when the federal government reported that unemployment in Los Angeles County climbed to 9.3% in September, up from 8.5% in August to the highest level since July, 1984. Statewide, the jobless rate was 7.7% last month.

September unemployment statistics are not yet available for other Southern California counties. In August, San Diego County posted a 6.1% jobless rate; in Orange County, the figure was 4.7%, down from a seven-year high of 5.7% in July.

Here and there, employment specialists see signs of modest improvement in the job market. JoAnn Manion, owner of Tustin Personnel Services, said some of the firms she works with are beginning to put their temporary workers into full-time jobs.

“At least there are companies that are hiring now. For a period of six or seven months--from, say, February to July--nobody wanted to talk permanent hiring, and that’s a lot of our business,” Manion said.

The apparent pick-up at some employment agencies, however, stems at least partly from a competitive shakeout. Hard times have prompted some employment firms to close offices or shut down entirely.

Meanwhile, workers are mailing stacks of resumes, in many cases applying for positions that would mean hefty cuts in pay from their previous jobs. “I’ve never seen so many people looking,” said Susan Allen, owner of Susan Allen Personnel Services in West Hollywood, which specializes in office workers such as secretaries and bookkeepers.

Allen, who has been in the personnel business for more than 20 years, said her customers include “quality people” who have been out of work since late last year.

“The people who have the toughest time finding a job are the mid- to upper-level people: engineers, accountants, computer guys. We get a lot of resumes from them,” Mesmer said.

Outplacement firms--staffed with specialists who advise laid-off workers on how to find new jobs--are feeling the pinch as well.

To be sure, there is a greater call for their services at a time when many companies are dismissing legions of employees to cut costs. But companies that hire outplacement firms in tough times are more apt to bargain hard for lower fees and to choose less-extensive assistance programs, said Gary L. Saenger, managing principal in Los Angeles for Right Associates, an outplacement firm.

Also, outplacement firms sometimes provide office space for laid-off executives until they find new jobs. Since job searches are taking longer, the firms need more office space--creating an extra burden in real estate expenses.

Executive recruiters complain that too much of their time is being spent unproductively. Part of the problem is that many of their past clients--personnel executives who retained recruiters to search for job candidates--are out of work themselves.

Many of these personnel specialists are visiting their old friends in the headhunting business to get free job-hunting tips. And because these out-of-work executives may be in a position to hire headhunters again someday, “you can’t say no,” said Gary Kaplan, who heads a Pasadena-based executive search firm bearing his name.

Kaplan said the biggest problem for headhunters, however, is the lack of hiring. Particularly weak is the job market for financial specialists.

Even so, sometimes it’s tough to find qualified applicants. Gary Armbruster, San Diego manager of Robert Half/Accountemps, a firm that specializes in placing accountants and financial executives, said he has been frustrated in his efforts to find a good accountant with a manufacturing background.

Applications are pouring in from people with backgrounds in retailing and other service industries--”anything but production,” he said.

“It’s just indicative of the volume of people readily available on the market,” Armbruster said. “It shows you there are a lot of people out there actively pursuing work.”

He also cited the example of a San Diego company that advertised this week for a staff accountant. “They got 200 applications, from controllers down to clerks,” Armbruster said.

Employment agencies are hurting, in some cases, because businesses are bypassing them and hiring workers themselves because of the vast number of applicants available.

Even when employment agencies are called on to provide candidates, their job these days is trickier and more time-consuming--a hardship for agencies that don’t get paid until the job candidates they submit are hired.

Employers are getting choosier and taking longer to make decisions about new hires, explained Bernard Howroyd, president of Glendale-based Appleone Employment Services, one of the giants of the industry.

Howroyd suggested, though, that taking a more careful look at applicants is a good idea these days, because when so many people are out of work, it’s harder to distinguish the good candidates from the bad ones.

Temporary employment agencies often are among the first to be hurt in a recession because many of their slumping corporate customers are quick to cut temporary workers to reduce expenses.

At the same time, these agencies frequently are among the first to pull out of a slump, because their clients like to hire temporary workers when business initially picks up, not replacing them with permanent workers until they gain confidence in the recovery.

So how is the temp business doing? Although there are signs of improvement, it’s still slow, said Paula Schell, the Santa Ana branch manager of the temp agency Cencor Inc.

Stuart Silverstein reported from Los Angeles, and Michael Flagg reported from Orange County. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Julie Tamaki and Lorna Fernandes in Los Angeles and Chris Kraul in San Diego.

California Jobless Rate Percent of work force, seasonally adjusted 1991 Sept.: 7.7% Source: Employment Development Department