THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WHERE THE JOBS ARE : FINDING WORK : Looking Up : Believe It or Not, the Region’s Job Picture May Be Brightening
For residents of Los Angeles County seeking work, the last two years have been bleak. Jobs disappeared as employers shed staff by the tens of thousands. Relatively few positions were created.
In the midst of the gloom, new figures from the state Employment Development Department provide some welcome cheer. The statistics, to be published in late April, project non-agricultural employment in L.A. County growing by 5.7% between 1990 and 1997, to a new high of nearly 4.5 million. (Projections for Orange and Ventura counties weren’t available.)
That 5.7% increase would mean 241,200 new jobs. In addition, companies would need to fill 675,570 openings created by promotions, moves, deaths and retirements.
But before you quit your job to snare one of these new ones, remember that behind the bald figures are layers of nuance and assumptions that can be knocked out of kilter by unforeseen events.
Three years ago, the EDD published a rosy picture of the county’s economic future. Employment would grow 9.1%, led by double-digit increases in construction, wholesale trade, retailing, finance, real estate and services.
Obviously, that projection proved wildly optimistic. Employment in the county today is 3.9 million, down more than 300,000 from 1990.
“That report was done prior to the recession,” says Jay Horowitz, labor market analyst at the EDD in Los Angeles. “It was based on a different set of assumptions.”
New Projections
Indeed. The new projections--based on new assumptions--estimate that it will take an extra four years, to 1997, to reach the target of 4.4 million jobs that was supposed to arrive this year.
Despite the new assumptions, others remain doubtful. Jack Kyser, chief economist at the private Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, is suggesting a mere 2.3% rise in county employment between 1990 and the end of the decade. (The EDD numbers stop three years earlier.)
Setting aside the foibles of economic projections, the latest job survey for L.A. County can probably be relied upon in projecting a trend that started in the early 1980s--a trend that has to do with the kinds of employment that will be available.
Manufacturing jobs continue to decline, while the service sector grows. Fewer workers will build aerospace and defense equipment.
On the other hand, more people will work in hotels, medical facilities and amusement parks. The publishing, apparel manufacturing, entertainment, health, hotel and restaurant trades will expand.
Defense and high technology will continue to shrink. Clerks, along with bank tellers, stenographers and directory assistance operators, will lose to automation. The future of construction work in Southern California is unclear.
The balance shifted just over a decade ago. In 1982 the manufacturing sector held a slight edge over the services segment of the economy. By the next year, the figures were reversed, and the gap has widened yearly. If the 1997 projections are met, the service sector will employ 1.4 million people in the county, manufacturers just over 800,000.
As work in L.A. County changes, the types of skills in demand will also change dramatically. The EDD analysis forecasts an 11% jump in service occupations such as restaurant workers, guards, health workers, maids, janitors, housekeepers, and child care and amusement park workers.
At the professional and technical level, employers would need nurses, teachers at all levels, accountants, computer programmers and health specialists. In all these categories, employers would fill 125,000 new jobs and 266,000 vacancies in existing positions by 1997, the forecast says.
Health Care
The health sector, one of the bright spots in the economic forecast, would continue to absorb many county workers, according to the projections. There would be openings for medical administrators, nurses, physical therapists, radiologic technologists, doctors, lab technicians, emergency medical technicians and respiratory care practitioners.
Yet the supply of health care workers is limited. Government cutbacks at the educational level are hitting health programs particularly hard because the high teacher-student ratios needed during training are expensive, says Arthur Sponseller, a senior vice president at the Hospital Council of Southern California, which represents most of the hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
“We are in a tough spot right now,” he says. “People want the training, but waiting lists are long.”
Historically, the state has never produced enough trained medical personnel, according to Sponseller. “Half our nurses are from outside California.”
Hospital nurses used to be in short supply, but higher salaries and a reduction in hospital beds have eased that situation temporarily. “New graduates have to work harder to find positions,” Sponseller says.
He says the proliferation of clinics, group medical practices and other forms of care will provide nurses with new opportunities. But instead of calling on one or two large facilities, applicants might have to try a dozen smaller ones.
Changes in the health care industry are also attracting members of the ever-widening pool of former bank employees.
“If you have financial acumen, there are jobs,” says Jack Schlosser, a partner at the executive placement firm of Heidrick & Struggles.
Specialists in systems, human resources and finance are transferring their skills, he says. Although Schlosser says he is optimistic about the future of the health care industry, he stresses that “the future of the local industry depends largely on the strategy unfolding at the national level.”
Policy decisions could make predictions about health employment vulnerable to error. President Clinton has already said he plans to make health care reform a priority. On the one hand, that may bring universal medical coverage; on the other, it will surely bring more stringent spending controls.
Manufacturing
While durable-goods manufacturing continues to decline, led by the shrinking of the aerospace and defense-related industries, the EDD projection sees improved employment in non-durable production--books and magazines, for example, or textiles and apparel. In fact, growth in the manufacture of apparel and related products would become a more important part of the local economy, gaining 24,700 jobs. That growth would mean more work for cutters, pattern makers and sewers.
“I don’t share that optimism,” says Lanny Blake, personnel director at Guess. The jeans manufacturer employs 1,200 people in downtown Los Angeles and has no plans to hire more. However, Blake says the company does use subcontractors, and would probably expand manufacturing that way before hiring more employees.
Though apparel is a bright light in the survey, politics intrudes on that industry’s future as well, in this case through the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement. “The people I talk to want to do business with Mexico,” says Blake.
Construction
Such talk doesn’t cheer the construction industry, already in the doldrums and still shedding workers after its previous-decade boom. Cynics might see embarking on a career as a plumber, electrician or other skilled tradesperson as a lifelong sentence to watch TV all day. Right now, there just aren’t any jobs.
But the EDD predicts job growth in the construction sector of 7.7%. That rate is half the pace looked for in the earlier survey, but it still sounds optimistic to Lynn Reaser, chief economist at First Interstate Bancorp. The construction work force has dropped by almost a third from its peak in 1990. “It would have to explode to reach 165,900 (the EDD target) in 1997,” she says.
While commercial construction falters, the industry hopes public projects will pick up.
Engineering
“You still need to move people and to clean up waste facilities,” says Gordon Thayer, vice president of human resources at Pasadena-based Parsons Corp. Parsons, supervising contractor of MetroRail, is still hiring engineers, but it has a far bigger pool to choose from.
“It is going to be tough for the college graduate in 1993,” says Thayer. “Engineers with a couple of years experience who are on the street may be a more attractive hire to companies with modest recruiting needs.”
The existence of an unemployed pool of well-trained labor will mean serious competition among college graduates across the occupational spectrum. Companies replying to the Lindquist-Endicott survey, a job-placement report published annually by Northwestern University, hired more seasoned personnel than graduates last year. By doing so, the companies saved money on training and could put the new employees to work faster.
“In the old days, a person out of work was perceived as damaged goods,” says Janet Irwin, senior vice president of Lee, Hecht, Harrison Inc., an outplacement firm in West Los Angeles. “There is not the stigma today.”
Temporary Work
Many of the new jobs are coming from small- and medium-size firms. By signing on at a temporary firm, a graduate can become familiar with different companies and might even land a full-time job.
“About 30% of my temps have gone on to work full time,” says Ted Milner, owner of Executive Temps in Burbank.
Reaser says even the beleaguered high-technology area could turn itself around, as engineers turn their skills to other products.
“Consumer electronics, capital goods like medical instruments and measuring instruments for environmental controls and engineering of products we don’t even know about yet are a bright spot,” she says.
Growth in the area of design and international trade will offer opportunities for creative types, and for financial executives willing to look beyond the county’s borders.
Government won’t be picking up much of the slack, Reaser predicts. Fiscal problems in Los Angeles and other cities are more likely to result in layoffs.
Where the Jobs Are The state Employment Development Department has identified more than two dozen L.A. County industries that will need to hire more workers between now and 1997. Even some manufacturing sectors will add jobs, especially those making non-durable goods. Sectors With Growth Forecasted Percent change from 1990 to 1997 CONSTRUCTION General Building Contractors: +9.2 Special Trade Contractors: +9.6 DURABLE GOODS MANUFACTURING Lumber and Wood Products: +4.6 Furniture and Fixtures: +0.6 Electronic Equipment: +2.4 NONDURABLE GOODS MANUFACTURING Textile Mill Products: +9.3 Food and Kindred Products: +3.8 Apparel and Other Allied Products: +25.0 Paper and Other Allied Products: + 9.4 Printing and Publishing: +12.8 Chemical and Allied Products: +3.1 Petroleum and Coal Products: +1.8 RETAIL TRADE Food Stores: +4.3 Restaurants: +14.5 FINANCE, INSURANCE, & REAL ESTATE Real Estate: +12.5 Security and Commodity Brokers: +14.9 Insurance: +6.2 SERVICES Hotels: +10.0 Business Services: +10.1 Health Services: +15.8 Motion Pictures: +22.0 Amusement and Recreation: +15.6 GOVERNMENT State and Local: +5.2 Total Local Government: +8.0 Local Education: +11.3 County Government: +5.0 City Government: +1.4 Source: State of California, Employment Development Dept.
