Slump Tests Ingenuity of O.C.’s Unemployed : Economy: The 97,100 jobless residents have had to cope with recession for longer than anyone imagined.

Randy Morse just spent his third holiday season in a row out of work.

The former Rockwell International program manager has scoured Southern California for a job during the past 27 months without success.

Morse, 41, has a master’s degree in business administration, a computer science degree and nearly two decades of experience. And he is living proof that those in Orange County have had to cope with the recession and layoffs for longer than almost anyone imagined.

Morse is one of 97,100 unemployed Orange County residents who feel the chill of the nation’s economic winter, which began about 30 months ago. This past holiday season, more people than the year before shared Morse’s predicament.

Just Thursday, the state Employment Development Department reported that 7,000 people in Orange County joined the ranks of the jobless in November as unemployment hit 7%, the highest level in more than nine years.

Morse saw his job loss coming and prepared for it, but the experience of unemployment has tested his ingenuity. He has distributed 200 resumes, attended a dozen job fairs, and he tries to speak with at least one person each day who might help him. He even went to the annual meeting of his former employer and asked for a new job from Rockwell Chairman Don Beall--twice.

“When I went to work at Rockwell, I thought it was for good,” said Morse, a soft-spoken, bearded man who worked in Rockwell’s Newport Beach chip manufacturing unit for seven years. “I had never been laid off before.”

Despite the conventional wisdom that Orange County’s affluent society has been somewhat sheltered from the economic chill in the rest of the state, a growing number of people here share Morse’s predicament of long-term unemployment.

In October, there were 3,636 people in Orange County who, like Morse, had exhausted their six-month unemployment benefits. That number was up 28% from a year earlier. An additional 5,149 had applied for six-month extensions of benefits, and 1,313 more had exhausted those benefits as well.

“We don’t know the average amount of time people spend looking for work,” said Eleanor Jordan, labor market analyst for the state Employment Development Division in Santa Ana. “Before the recession, it was eight weeks. We know it has gotten longer.”

Morse has survived by doing consulting work and on proceeds from selling his three-bedroom house in Irvine. Others, especially those considered “unskilled laborers,” do not have such a cushion.

Three months ago, Maria Elena Lopez, a mother of three, lost her job in a baseball card factory in Costa Mesa where she had worked for five months. Today, she would take any job, even minimum-wage work.

“I don’t speak too much English,” said Lopez, who has lived in Santa Ana for 20 years. “It makes it hard to find a job. I’ve taken English classes for the last two years.”

Her husband has also lost his job. Asked what she will do next, Lopez can only shrug her shoulders.

Orange County’s unemployment rate reached 7% in November, up from 6.6% a month earlier. That figure doesn’t indicate the extent of the misery caused by the prolonged recession.

In Orange County, 37,399 families received federal welfare checks in November, up 15% from a year earlier. At the same time, welfare benefits have been cut about 10.2% in the past 14 months. The number of food-stamp recipients in October was 22,073, up 42% from last year. And, although 10,000 to 12,000 people are homeless, shelters in the county have beds for only about 1,000.

“I’ve heard that people who used to donate food are now asking for assistance,” said Susan Oakson, executive director of the county’s Homeless Issues Task Force.

The state unemployment office in Santa Ana has the dubious distinction of being among the busiest in the state, and the holidays brought no lull.

To alleviate long lines, the agency in September opened a fifth office in Orange County in Mission Viejo. Still, the week after Christmas could prove the busiest of the year because retail workers hired for the holidays will again be out of work.

The end of the year offered the unemployed a chance to focus on the holidays, however, and hope that the woes of 1992 are behind them. They may no longer believe in the benefits of being optimistic, but they see no point in dwelling on the negative.

“It’s best to try to get your mind off your troubles,” said Gene Kaylor, 39, who was recently waiting for his number to be called at the unemployment office. “My position could be a whole lot worse in light of what has been going on,” a reference to the situation in Somalia.

Kaylor, a father of two, was a construction foreman until last week, when he was laid off. He hopes to put his 18 years of experience to good use again in the same industry.

Although he has acquired new skills since the last time he was laid off seven years ago, Kaylor, who lives in Orange, has an inkling that his odds of finding a job will be more difficult this time.

Indeed, Orange County lost about 27,500 of its 1.16 million non-agricultural jobs during 1992, on top of the 45,500 lost in 1991, according to Chapman University economists.

While the rest of the nation is recovering, Orange County is expected to progress more slowly next year, the Chapman report said. Next year, the economists forecast a meager net gain of about 1,100 jobs.

Neil Reich, a job placement director for the state Employment Development Division, noted that the jobless figures do not take into account the underemployed--frustrated job searchers who have decided that “$5 per hour is better than no dollars per hour.”

Haydee Downey, 26, is such a person. The Los Alamitos mother of two lost a $9-an-hour job as an assistant secretary in October and is now working part time for $4.50 an hour as a clerk at a video store. Although she was able to find the new job in only six weeks, Downey is ambivalent about her situation now. She likes having more time to spend with her young sons, but she isn’t sure if the family can get by without two full-time incomes.

“If it comes down to rock bottom, I’d have to send out resumes,” she said. “I’ve been working since I was 10 years old. I’m willing to work. I have an ex-brother-in-law who took a job at McDonald’s. I think that’s realistic.”

Reich said he often tells newly unemployed people to lower their expectations or widen their geographic search to find work. Older workers are having the most trouble getting jobs, he said.

Luke Reese, 55, knows that. He lost his $16-an-hour job as a flight systems repairman for Parker Bertea Aerospace in Irvine in November, 1989. He lived on retirement income from 22 years of work as well as his wife’s income. But he got restless and now wants a warehouse or janitorial job.

“Younger people have the ability to learn,” he said. “For us older people, we have more experience in life, and that should help us get a job easier.”

That is not the reality, though, Reese said. “It’s extremely hard to get back into aviation.”

Other older workers are not trying to find work after being laid off; rather, they are taking early retirement. An example is Leonard Cole, 60, who decided to retire earlier than he had hoped after being laid off from Rockwell International’s operation in Seal Beach earlier this year.

“I was lucky to be able to retire and get my full benefits,” the Westminster resident said. “I have other friends who weren’t so lucky.”

Because the timing of a regional recovery is uncertain, economists cannot easily predict the future. Thus they cannot say what the job-market odds are likely to be for people like Kaylor.

“I wish the economists would come down to the unemployment office themselves,” Kaylor said.

The construction industry isn’t expected to rebound until 1994, and commercial real estate might not turn around until 1995. The outlook is just as uncertain for other industries.

Cal State Fullerton economists say that Orange County’s defense contractors could lose an additional 17,500 jobs in the next four years. Hiring at fast-growth computer hardware manufacturers has halted as companies fight to stay alive in a vicious price war. And retail is not showing signs of increased strength.

Industries such as health care, biotechnology and computer software are expected to grow, but the nature of that growth could depend on what President-elect Bill Clinton does.

Theodore Johnson, 38, hopes Clinton will boost the environmental industry. A geotechnology engineer who lost his job doing seismic tests for construction companies last month, the Costa Mesa resident is branching out.

He missed out on a job at one environmental company. But his wife is working as an environmental engineer, which gives him a financial cushion so that he can take time to look for a good job. He is confident that he can match his $30,000-a-year salary as an air-pollution consultant.

“You have to get aggressive and go after all the possibilities,” he said. “The newspaper only has about 20% of what’s out there. That’s why I’m making cold calls. I would lower my standards, but only when my funds run out.”

Even with a new Administration in Washington, the unemployed are preparing for the possibility that the economy might not get better for a while. If that happens, grizzled have-not veterans offer stern advice to other unlucky souls.

Morse, for example, has survived by living in an economic bomb shelter. He has invested money from the sale of his house wisely. He rarely eats out. He has not bought household items or new clothes for two years.

He looks for leads on jobs at college alumni meetings. He listens to motivational tapes to keep his spirits up. He sets his goals so that he can return to his previous lifestyle. And he looks for mixed blessings in the recession.

“I’ve been able to spend a lot more time with my son,” he said. “I’ve made a bad situation work the best I can, and I feel that adds to my management skills.

“I’m luckier than 99% of the people out there looking for jobs, partly because I looked at things the way they really are and sold my house at the right time,” he said. “I know I can survive. I want to be more than a survivor.”

1992: Not the Best of Times

Maintaining a two-year trend, Orange County continued to lose jobs in 1992, with the majority of them in sales and manufacturing.

More People Worked in 1991

Through November, Orange County had an average of 30,000 fewer jobs each month in the year just ended than in 1991. (Monthly figures in thousands).

Number employed Number employed 1991 1992 January 1,154.2 1,133.7 February 1,155.6 1,126.0 March 1,160.4 1,132.3 April 1,161.0 1,133.6 May 1,163.2 1,134.8 June 1,167.8 1,138.1 July 1,156.8 1,123.8 August 1,153.6 1,119.3 September 1,159.6 1,124.3 October 1,162.9 1,128.8 November 1,161.2 1,130.2

Which Jobs Disappeared

In November, about 31,000 fewer people were on Orange County employers’ payrolls than in the same month last year. Service industries including transportation, finance, insurance and real estate, were the only area that posted a gain in jobs. In thousands of jobs:

Nov. 1991 Nov. 1992 Wholesale, retail sales 284.8 275.6 Manufacturing 155.0 147.7 Mining, construction 54.4 49.7 High technology, defense 78.3 73.9 Tourism 121.9 117.8 Other services 335.8 336.8 Government service 131.0 128.7

Source: California Employment Development Department

Researched by DALLAS M. JACKSON / Los Angeles Times