CAREER START : VYING FOR THE SECRETARIAL POOL : With more people out of work, there is stiff competition for clerical jobs. But demand is picking up too.
If you are looking for an entry-level office job, it will take more patience and persistence than ever to find one--even if you are willing to start in the mail room.
On the plus side, the demand for secretaries, receptionists, file clerks and computer data-entry workers seems to be picking up slightly.
“Companies are starting to add more temporary people,” said Bernard Howroyd, president of Glendale-based AppleOne Employment Services. “Some companies are also finding that they need more permanent employees.”
But with the fallout from the recession, young people and others without much experience face more competition than usual for entry-level office jobs. Many seasoned clerical workers are lining up for even the lowest-paying clerical positions, giving employers a more qualified pool of applicants from which to choose.
“Instead of secretaries with two or three years’ experience applying for these jobs, people are filling up our lobby who have five or 10 years of experience,” said Vic VanAudenhove, human resources manager at Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., a Riverside-based maker of manufactured housing and recreational vehicles.
Despite the modest improvement personnel agencies are seeing in the office-job market, the near-term outlook for much real growth isn’t good.
“1992 looks like another troubled year,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the not-for-profit Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County. Financially strapped state and local governments, some of the biggest employers of clerical workers, aren’t expected to do much hiring.
Amid the doom and gloom, there are some bright spots.
“Engineering companies should continue doing very well,” Kyser said, primarily because of oil refinery renovations. Health services--hospitals, clinics and health maintenance organizations (HMOs)--is also growing. Several other local industries, including movies and television, may improve in the coming year as well, Kyser said.
Still, of a dozen big companies asked about their 1992 clerical hiring plans, only Pasadena-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and Pacificare Health Systems Inc., a large HMO based in Cypress, said they will probably add clerical jobs. Most other companies only intend to replace people who leave or retire. GTE California, based in Thousand Oaks, which has a huge office-support staff, said it may even eliminate some of those jobs.
Jacobs Engineering expects to fill 10 new clerical positions at the company’s home office, but not until midyear.
“We’re looking first and foremost for people with good computer word-processing skills,” said Bill Gebhardt, Jacobs’ director of corporate human resources. “We’re seeing a lot of applicants with excellent skills, people who were laid off in the aerospace and defense industries and have the kind of background we need working on contracts and proposals.”
Fluor Corp., another large engineering concern, doesn’t foresee an increase in its 330-member clerical staff at the company’s Irvine headquarters. But “we have a high turnover, so we do quite a bit of replacing,” said Heidi Beyma, Fluor’s clerical recruiter. Entry-level secretaries, who must be able to type 50 words a minute, earn an average of $1,765 a month.
Bill Wood, vice president of human resources at Pacificare, said that because the company recently acquired Orange County-based Health Plans of America, another HMO, Pacificare’s 1992 budget includes a number of new clerical job openings.
“I can’t say exactly how many new jobs we will have,” said Wood. “But it will be a significant number unless something critical occurs.”
About 60% of Pacificare’s 1,700 Southern California employees work at clerical or semiskilled clerical jobs in the mail room or the warehouse. Most secretarial jobs require at least a year or two of experience, Wood said. Beginning mail room and warehouse employees, receptionists, file clerks and data-entry people start at between $13,000 and $15,000 a year.
Although Pacificare hires few young people just entering the job market, “We do have some of those positions and we look out for the ones who seem to have that little bit extra,” Wood said. “It’s unbelievable to me how many of these kids haven’t learned how to dress, how to present themselves well.”
The job squeeze is even more evident in the troubled financial services industry, where many clerical and lower-end banking jobs will disappear with the merger of Security Pacific National Bank and Bank of America. At Ventura County Bancorp in Oxnard, “the resumes are just pouring in--it’s unbelievable,” said Teri Short, who works in human resources. “People with 25 years of management experience are applying for teller jobs.”
The turnover among clerical employees at the Walt Disney Co. in Burbank has historically been low and “I would anticipate that wouldn’t change,” said Joseph Fabiano, director of employee relations. Still, Disney hires many clerical and computer-support workers. The company has an employment hot line, (818) 560-1811, that job hunters can call for a description of available openings.
Bud Green, state director of human resources at GTE California, said the phone company anticipates that fewer than 7% of its clerical workers will leave this year, compared with more than 10% in 1988. The total office staff at its 400 locations numbers about 2,400, ranging from secretaries and a customer service representatives to repair clerks. About 20% of these jobs are considered entry-level, Green said. Salaries start at $13,700 a year. They typically require the ability to type at least 40 words a minute or to enter computer data at the same speed.
