Workers Brace for Layoffs : Employment: County managers and employees, once secure in government positions, fear for their futures. Up to 5,000 may be dismissed.

With Los Angeles County facing a financial emergency of unprecedented magnitude, the seemingly secure cocoon of local government employment is shattering as more than 5,000 workers find their jobs on the line.

Desperate to close a $600-million budget shortfall, the county is considering laying off 6% of its 80,000-member work force--a prospect that poses a daunting challenge to employees and their bosses.

County officials are trying to get a federal grant to provide counseling, child care and job training. Failing that, they are prepared to ask the Board of Supervisors to provide money for a scaled-down program of services for displaced workers.

Many employees with low seniority are searching for new jobs or looking for ways to reduce their cost of living. One county employee spoke of a colleague who has arranged to move in with friends, certain she soon will be unable to afford the rent on her apartment.

The pressures have been heightened by the prospect of being released into a Southern California economy ill-equipped to absorb thousands of newly unemployed--many with skills not easily transferred to the private sector.

“There is a high level of anxiety, particularly among new employees in my department,” said Beverly Campbell, assistant administrative officer in charge of human resources. “People are asking themselves: ‘Should I take this loan out? Should I start looking for something else?’ It’s really a unique situation because so many people joined government thinking it is the one secure position.”

If no budget solutions are found and 5,000 employees are let go, it would be unprecedented in county government history. Such a large layoff is comparable to some of those recently announced in private industry: McDonnell Douglas Aircraft announced in January it would lay off 4,000 Southern California workers; 6,000 Hughes Aircraft employees are being laid off this year.

The county cut would have a sizable impact locally, chilling what little thaw had begun to spread through the recovering Southern California economy, said economist Jack Kyser.

“It would ripple through the whole retail chain,” said Kyser, chief economist with the private, nonprofit Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles. “People go into a survival mode: no eating out, no new car, no vacation, no movies. And that’s not to mention the impact on confidence, as others see more people losing their jobs.”

Mindful of the tensions that forced layoffs can have on a work force, county officials say they want to treat outgoing employees humanely. Officials say they are concerned--although not overly--that some disgruntled employees might react violently, perhaps acting out the so-called “postal worker syndrome.”

“We are very aware of the need to be sensitive to what we are doing and how we approach this,” said assistant chief administrative officer Mary Jung, who is overseeing the county’s plans to shrink its work force. “We’re hoping a humanitarian approach will work.”

Jung said there are no plans to install extra security. “Sometimes, these things become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said.

However, sensitivity training workshops have been made available to managers, who are also being coached to carefully observe their work force for any signs of undue stress.

But all plans these days are clouded in uncertainties, dependent on county budget deliberations, scheduled to start today, and the vicissitudes of the Legislature, which is considering several bills that could help the county.

It is, perhaps, the uncertainty that is most menacing.

“I haven’t faced anything this serious in all of my years,” said Barbara Taylor, a grandmother of four who has worked for the county for 20 years. “All I can think of is, am I going to become homeless? Am I going to be safe? What’s going to happen?”

In her job as a recreation specialist for the Parks and Recreation Department, Taylor has worked for years getting to know the needs in the Florence-Firestone district, devising recreation programs for children and adults and even generating the funding--mostly grants--to pay for them.

But now her job is at risk.

“They are not telling us much of anything,” she said. “Everyone is depressed, concerned about losing their job. And the sad part of it is that everyone is so dedicated.”

Taylor says that she and her colleagues are most concerned with the loss of services that their departures will entail.

“The main thing is giving these kids the activities they need,” she said. “If they don’t have an outlet, they are going to burn up the parks. You’re going to have gangs taking over, more homeless.”

Recently, Taylor was dispatched to several parks to post signs warning residents of the possibility of closures of many recreation areas and reductions of service because of the budget crisis.

“I took (the signs) up and tears would begin to come into my eyes. I couldn’t take it,” she said. “I had to go back to my car.”

Although there has been talk of large layoffs in previous years, a palpable fear pervades county corridors that this time the danger is real.

“You can feel the friction in the air,” said Ben Soto, a sheet-metal worker who has been with the county for 14 years. Soto’s Internal Services Department is due to be especially hard hit. Six workers have been laid off; 57 more are slated to go by Aug. 31, said union officials.

“With our trade, it’s so slow on the outside. It’s the worst possible time to be looking for something,” Soto said, taking an early morning coffee break recently with a few colleagues in a courtyard near the Hall of Administration. “It seems like they hit the trades hard all the time. We’ve got to eat. We have kids in college, the same as everybody else. We have to make house payments.”

Soto said he has a 19-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, both contemplating college. “This is the time when you need a job the most. School is very expensive right now.”

County officials have requested $4 million in federal funds to provide support services, such as peer counseling, child care, transportation, relocation assistance and some classroom training for displaced workers. If the funds do not come through, officials will ask the Board of Supervisors to make additional cuts in the budget to fund some services, said assistant chief administrative officer Jung.

Campbell, of human resources, said: “Our feeling is these things have to be done. We have to be concerned about the morale and (productivity) of the people who remain. . . . Ninety percent of the work force will still be here and they will be looking at how we treat those who have been laid off. We want their full cooperation and support.”

Ralph Llamas, who works at the Hubert Humphrey Health Clinic in South-Central Los Angeles, sees sick people every day, but has lately observed distress among his co-workers. Because of budget cuts, the clinic is scheduled to close by Sept. 1, forcing out about 350 people.

“I see a lot of depression,” said Llamas, 41, a clerk in the public health investigations unit. “People are buying newspapers, looking at want ads. There’s a lot of anger and it’s hard for people to talk about it.”

Llamas, who has worked at Humphrey for two years, is a divorced father of two children, a 15-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter. He has been weighing the changes that are likely to come in his life.

“The child support will stop, so that will affect my wife and children,” he said. “Luckily, my car is paid for and I rent a house from by brother, so there is some flexibility there.”

But Llamas does not have a college degree and would likely have to return to school to be retrained, he said.

Like Taylor of the parks and recreation department, he worries about what will happen to the public without the services he provides. His office handles a large caseload of dog bites, tracking down canines for quarantine to ensure no rabies are involved, as well as communicable diseases such as hepatitis.

“We open our doors at 7:30 a.m. in the morning and by 6:30 a.m., there are already people standing in line,” said Llamas.

“After the riots, our leaders talked about rebuilding L.A. But this is not the way you rebuild anything.”