THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WHERE THE JOBS ARE : FINDING WORK : Forget Glitz : When It Comes to New Jobs, Think Terre Haute

If you’re thinking about moving for a job, forget glamour, sunshine and surf. Consider Little Rock, Boise or Indianapolis.

Better yet, think about Laredo, Tex., Decatur, Ill., or Terre Haute, Ind.

These are some of the many U.S. cities that added new jobs to their economies in the last year.

It’s a painful truth that while the Southern California job market remains tough, new jobs are springing up elsewhere across the country. In fact, the nation gained 489,000 non-agricultural jobs in the 12 months ended in November, according to statistics published by a business research center at Arizona State University in Tempe.

But before you head East, heed the advice of employment experts and conduct a thorough local job search first. It’s emotionally and financially taxing to move to another part of the country. Moreover, few places can match California’s climate or lifestyle, or the size of its economy.

But if a move looks necessary, some areas are growing a lot faster than others.

To start, look at the states with the largest number of new jobs. For that same 12 months ended in November, they include: Texas (96,700), Minnesota (52,700), Georgia (37,500), Indiana (36,200) and Florida (34,600), according to Arizona State’s publication “Blue Chip Job Growth Update,” which bases its rankings on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

California was dead last, losing 233,000 jobs in the same period. The largest regional loss in the state was in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, which lost 108,500 jobs.

However, state totals won’t tell you enough to make even a reasonable start. There are still many areas of unemployment in the states with job growth. The key is to find out what kinds of jobs are being added and where.

For instance, Florida led the country in new service jobs, adding 53,700 for the 12-month period, but it lost jobs in construction, manufacturing and other areas, for a net gain of 34,600 jobs.

So if you’re in health or leisure services you may find your niche in Florida. The state’s large retiree population and vacation industry have kept employment in these fields booming.

“You give me 50 physical therapists tonight and I’ll give them all jobs before I go home,” says Jack Adair, a health care recruiter in West Palm Beach.

But Adair says the increase in service jobs is no panacea: “We’re generating a lot of jobs that no one can live on. We’re making a living in Florida polishing each other’s shoes.”

Demand for well-trained health care workers should continue to increase. According to employment projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physical therapists, home health aides, radiology technicians and medical assistants should be among the 10 fastest-growing careers between now and the year 2005.

System analysts, computer scientists, paralegals and human service workers will also be in demand. And travel agents ranked a surprising 13th in projected job growth, followed directly by corrections officers.

Want a location that may offer a broad range of service jobs? If you can weather the winters, try Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Twin Cities had the largest net job gain (36,400) of any metropolitan area last year, according to the Arizona State figures. (Minnesota as a whole was second among states in job growth. Texas was first, but has a much larger economy.)

Fueling the Twin Cities increase last year was the final construction and opening of the gigantic new Mall of America, which covers an area the size of three football fields. It generated an estimated 6,500 new jobs, according to Sandra Scott, director of economic development at the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce.

Indeed, the Twin Cities economy has stayed relatively healthy throughout the recent hard times. “We weathered the recession better than the East or West because we’re not as dependent on the defense industries,” Scott says.

Last year, Twin Cities unemployment was just 4.5%. Scott credits Minneapolis’ steady growth to a diverse company mix, including high-tech firms such as 3M and food conglomerates such as Cargill.

Another area with sustained employment increases is Salt Lake City-Ogden in Utah, ranking third last year in metropolitan job growth with 17,200 new positions. (Atlanta, a much larger city, was second.)

Like Minneapolis, Salt Lake’s job growth is a continuation of a 1980s trend.

“Eighty-five percent of all new jobs are Utah companies expanding,” says Rich Hazel, director of small business for the Greater Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber’s business bulletin speaks to the area’s driving economic force, the computer industry, with notes about yet another 680 jobs at software powerhouse WordPerfect and 150 jobs at network-software designer Novell.

Another tack in relocating is to research the sleepers, the areas not often discussed but on a definite upswing. How about Boise, Ida.? In a ranking of medium-sized metropolitan areas by job growth rates, Boise finished first: an increase of 7.51% last year, or 8,400 jobs, according to the Arizona State figures.

Most of the new jobs came from existing firms such as Albertson’s, Boise Cascade and Morrison-Knudsen, according to Shirl Boyce of the Boise Area Chamber of Commerce.

However, Idaho officials also try to woo certain industries to the state. For example, discussions are underway with three California high-tech firms to relocate planned expansion projects to Idaho, Boyce says.

Two other sleepers when it comes to job growth are Arkansas and South Dakota. Arkansas ranked first proportionately with a 3.29% increase in jobs (31,300) in the last year, according to the Arizona State figures. It also placed first in another indicator of economic well-being: increase in personal income for the third quarter of 1992 over the same period the preceding year.

South Dakota, meanwhile, was sixth in the rate at which new jobs were added, posting a 2.39% increase by gaining 7,200 positions.

A big factor in the healthy job picture in Arkansas (plastics, food processing, medical and telephone equipment) and South Dakota (food processing, credit card services, computer software, circuit boards, medical products and plastics) is the low cost of doing business in those states. Local officials cite low state taxes, land costs, utility rates, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance premiums.

Lower business costs usually imply lower wages, but the cost of living is generally lower too.

A three-bedroom, two-bath home on a 9,000-square-foot lot in a nice part of Sioux Falls, S.D. costs about $75,000, says Caroline Steirer, executive vice president of the South Dakota Assn. of Realtors. A similar home in Southern California might cost four times as much.

“You can’t tell me the pay in Los Angeles is four times higher,” Steirer says.

Or How About Arkansas? It had the greatest proportional gain in nonagricultural employment for the 12 months ended last November. As the map shows, other big gainers include Utah, Nevada, Montana. California actually lost jobs. Source: Economic Outlook Center, Arizona State University