THE TIMES 100 / THE BEST PERFORMING COMPANIES IN AMERICA : THE HUMAN FACTOR : Rising Restlessness

JOB HOPPING--rampant until a few years ago, when the cold reality of the recession hit the employment market--is beginning to bounce back in California.

Even employees who aren’t looking into jumping to new firms are stirring, often pushing their bosses harder for pay raises, promotions and new responsibilities.

Employment specialists say the growing restlessness, still in its very early stages, reflects frustrations linked to the pay freezes, heavier workloads and other hardships endured during the recession. With the California economy and many of the state’s employers finally showing signs of recovery, employees are beginning to try to make up for lost ground in their careers.

“The word on the street is that the economy is doing better, so why not look (for a new job) now? It’s not the way it was a year ago, when everyone was laying off people,” said Lisa Carp, director of human resources for Palm Springs-based Bird Products Corp., a maker of ventilators and other medical equipment.

Carp says she is receiving 10 to 15 unsolicited resumes a month from people who are employed but looking for new jobs, up about 20% from last year.

While some employers continued to cut back by shrinking their staffs in 1993, others were bulking up. Safeway, the largest employer among the state’s publicly held firms, added about 1,000 workers to bring its worldwide work force to 105,900. And computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co., the state’s No. 2 employer on The Times Top 100 Employers list, added 4,000 workers to bring its international work force to 96,600.

Executive recruiters say the task of coaxing managers to consider leaving their current jobs for new positions has gotten easier.

“We’re not getting the resistance we were getting just six or seven months ago,” said Gary Kaplan, an executive recruiter based in Pasadena.

Until recently, he explained, many executives routinely turned down overtures from other employers because they feared that, as new arrivals, they might be the first to be laid off if the companies embarked on layoffs.

“They were frightened,” Kaplan said. “They were concerned about being the new person in a new environment.”

Meanwhile, employers are beginning to notice increased turnover. Close to 10 middle managers, among a U.S. staff of more than 900, have left jobs at Standard Chartered Bank so far this year.

Nina Woodard, Standard’s employee relations manager in Los Angeles, said she was stunned recently when a local clerical employee whose job was being eliminated turned down an offer to stay with the company in another, higher-paying capacity. The departing employee, Woodard said, told her she could do better in the open market.

Even so, many people--perhaps the vast majority of Californians with jobs--are still reluctant to get back into the job market. The market remains glutted with unemployed workers who have more time on their hands to aggressively pursue the limited number of openings.

That is particularly true in California, where the jobless rate--8.6% in March--is far higher than the national level (6.5%). “There are too many people and too few opportunities,” said Jim Rockett, human resources director at CTX International, a computer monitor manufacturer in Walnut.

To Thomas J. Richardson, district manager of Kelly Temporary Services in San Bernardino, the job market appears to be on the mend. “There are fewer people out there than six months ago,” he said.

Yet in a truly strong market, Richardson says, people who want to switch jobs or occupations will often come to his firm to find temporary work to hold them over until a permanent position turns up. So far in this recovery, he said, that isn’t happening.

Star corporate performers, however, are increasingly testing the job market or seeking new rewards and challenges from their current jobs.

“There’s enough movement in the economy that the best and brightest in each organization are starting to push,” said Mark L. Feldman, an organizational behavior specialist in San Francisco with the management consulting firm William M. Mercer Inc.

Take, for example, Earl M. Rozran, a 36-year-old manager who joined Bird Products in February as director of its respiratory accessories unit.

During the last few years, he chafed under cost cutbacks at his previous employer, a medical products company where he had worked 11 years. For one thing, annual salary increases, even for good performers, were limited to 3%. In addition, the company slashed layers of management, which to Rozran meant there would be fewer opportunities for promotion.

Still, he balked at looking for jobs at other firms. “The feeling at that point was that the grass can’t be that much greener elsewhere. Everyone was going through the same kind of pain,” he said.

By late last year, though, Rozran concluded that “there is greener grass somewhere. It was just a matter of finding it.” He was receptive when approached in November by an executive headhunter representing Bird Products and quickly landed his current job.

Diane Triolo was also encouraged by the indications of an improving economy to take a chance on a new job.

She had a job as an office manager for a Sacramento publishing firm but felt that, professionally, she had hit a dead end. So she started thinking about working in law enforcement, a field that had long interested her. But Triolo was afraid that because of the slumping economy, if she got a job in law enforcement and it didn’t work out, she might not be able to find anything else suitable.

By mid-December, however, when she got a second offer to join the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department as a service representative--a job that involves handling phone calls from the public--the 41-year-old Triolo decided to go for it. “At my age,” she said, “I figured it was do or die.”

She added, however: “I would have hung on to (her old job) with all 20 fingers and toes if I had some serious doubts that I wouldn’t be able to get another job if it didn’t work out at the Sheriff’s Department. . . . If the economy isn’t going well, you’re going to sit on your job.”

Top 100 Employers

Companies ranked by total employees worldwide in 1993.

Total Calif. % Rank Company Emplys Emplys Calif 1 Safeway Inc. 105,900 24,782 23 2 Hewlett-Packard Co. 96,600 21,000 22 3 BankAmerica Corp. 96,500 63,000 65 4 Lockheed Corp. 83,500 24,000 29 5 Rockwell International Corp. 75,000 20,800 28 6 Walt Disney Co. 70,000 17,000 24 7 Pacific Telesis Group 54,886 54,026 98 8 Chevron Corp. 47,576 14,412 51 9 Dole Food Co. 45,000 7,304 16 10 Pinkerton’s Inc. 45,000 7,200 16 11 Hilton Hotels Corp. 43,000 7,200 17 12 Seagate Technology 43,000 3,240 1 13 National Medical Enterprises 41,000 14,200 35 14 Consolidated Freightways 39,100 961 2 15 Gap Inc. 39,000 NA NA 16 Fluor Daniel Inc. 38,000 3,300 9 17 ABM Industries 32,640 3,785 12 18 Litton Industries 32,000 6,000 19 19 Intel Corp. 29,500 25,800 87 20 Vons Cos. 29,173 28,092 96 21 Computer Sciences Corp. 29,000 3,500 12 22 Northrop Corp. 29,000 23,300 80 23 First Interstate Bancorp 26,589 8,281 31 24 Times Mirror Co. 26,475 10,195 39 25 Atlantic Richfield Co. 25,100 4,700 19 26 Pacific Gas & Electric 23,000 23,000 100 27 National Semiconductor 22,800 5,000 22 28 Foodmaker Inc. 21,000 12,300 59 29 Mattel Inc. 21,000 1,600 8 30 Teledyne Inc. 21,000 6,300 30 31 Carter Hawley Hale 20,000 17,676 88 32 Occidental Petroleum 19,860 850 4 33 Wells Fargo & Co. 19,700 19,700 100 34 Southern Pacific Rail 18,982 7,800 41 35 SCE Corp. 17,212 16,327 95 36 Cirrus Logic Inc. 17,050 1,400 8 37 Great Western Financial 16,875 10,129 60 38 Avery Dennison Corp. 15,750 2,172 14 39 MagneTek Inc. 15,500 500 3 40 Longs Drug Stores 15,400 NA NA 41 Fleetwood Enterprises 15,000 2,400 16 42 Unocal Corp. 13,613 6,008 44 43 Apple Computer Inc. 13,584 NA NA 44 Sizzler International 13,272 6,241 47 45 McKesson Corp. 13,000 3,000 23 46 Sun Microsystems Inc. 12,760 NA NA 47 FHP International Corp. 12,310 5,857 48 48 Advanced Micro Devices 12,065 2,910 24 49 Raychem Corp. 10,772 4,100 38 50 Carl Karcher Enterprises 10,700 NA NA 51 Transamerica Corp. 10,700 4,800 45 52 First American Financial 10,679 3,000 28 53 Oracle Systems Corp. 10,661 NA NA 54 National Health Labs 10,650 866 8 55 H.F. Ahmanson & Co. 10,479 6,610 63 56 House of Fabrics 10,135 2,713 27 57 Caesars World Inc. 10,100 75 1 58 Read-Rite Corp. 10,000 1,500 15 59 Syntex Corp. 10,000 4,000 40 60 GranCare Inc. 9,900 4,200 42 61 Tandem Computers Inc. 9,500 NA NA 62 Conner Peripherals 9,200 1,800 20 63 Pacific Enterprises 9,200 9,200 100 64 Craig Corp. 9,000 NA NA 65 Ross Stores 8,900 4,500 51 66 Varian Associates 7,800 3,250 42 67 Applied Magnetics Corp. 7,230 1,158 16 68 Union Bank 7,121 NA NA 69 Community Psychiatric Ctrs. 7,000 1,500 21 70 Potlatch Corp. 7,000 200 3 71 Solectron Corp. 6,900 2,600 38 72 AST Research Inc. 6,500 3,400 52 73 Beckman Instruments 6,500 4,000 62 74 Charles Schwab Corp. 6,500 3,000 46 75 Maxtor Corp. 6,400 350 5 76 Western Digital Corp. 6,400 1,480 23 77 McClatchy Newspapers Inc. 6,304 4,500 71 78 Amdahl Corp. 6,200 3,500 56 79 Chart House Enterprises 6,046 2,035 34 80 Williams-Sonoma Inc. 5,989 2,204 37 81 GTI Corp. 5,900 280 5 82 Summit Health Ltd. 5,600 3,500 63 83 Jenny Craig Inc. 5,570 NA NA 84 American President Cos. 5,437 NA NA 85 Rykoff-Sexton Inc. 5,400 1,805 33 86 Jacobs Engineering Group 5,396 1,249 23 87 SPI Pharmaceuticals 5,300 NA NA 88 Rohr Inc. 5,030 3,000 60 89 Allergan Inc. 4,750 1,500 32 90 Applied Materials 4,739 2,982 63 91 Clorox Co. 4,700 NA NA 92 Fidelity National Financial 4,700 2,800 60 93 Countrywide Credit Indus. 4,677 2,974 64 94 Homedco Group 4,500 800 18 95 Airtouch Communications 4,400 2,300 52 96 Foundation Health Corp. 4,400 4,400 100 97 ClothesTime Inc. 4,200 2,301 55 98 San Diego Gas & Electric 4,181 4,181 100 99 Grubb & Ellis 4,145 NA NA 100 Gottschalks Inc. 4,100 3,900 95

Source: STAR Services.