Recruiters Who Fill Low-Skill Jobs Go Begging

Pairing up, they barged into the Santa Ana laundermat and fanned out in opposite directions, swiftly moving in on their targets.

“We’re with the Marriott,” said Teri Michalski, raising her voice above the din of clothes dryers and thrusting a flier at a startled man. “If you or someone you know needs a job, our address is on top.”

Having cornered all of the able-bodied, the pair headed to the courthouse to catch jurors on break for lunch and then on to the bus terminal, a park and a senior center.

Everybody knows that software engineers are hard to find, but all this for hotel workers?

You bet.

Even in a region with a seeming abundance of low-skilled workers, service companies and retailers are now locked in a fierce battle for low-wage employees. And some are wielding decidedly unconventional recruiting tactics.

The competition for workers is intense throughout much of California and the nation. But Orange County, with its skimpy 2.5% unemployment rate, is among the hottest labor markets anywhere.

Just how bad is it?

Ask Walt Disney Co., which last week sent letters asking Disneyland’s annual pass holders whether they--or virtually anyone they know--would be interested in working at its second theme park in Anaheim.

Disney’s new California Adventure, which needs thousands of workers, is just one big employer searching frantically for workers--hundreds more are needed for new shops and hotels in the area. The pressure from Anaheim is squeezing employers countywide, who can no longer easily siphon workers from Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, since unemployment in those areas also has fallen sharply.

And now there’s Christmas to worry about.

Despite signs of a slowing U.S. economy, the holiday hiring scramble has begun.

To fortify their ranks, businesses are crowding job fairs and hitting the streets--literally--in a desperate search for cashiers, salesclerks, food preparers and other workers. Companies say they have bumped up salaries, loosened schedules and given bonuses to workers who refer new employees.

Still, they can’t find enough workers. And in the coming months, about 40% of the new workers needed in Orange County will be those with minimal skills, including salesclerks, housekeepers and janitors, said Wallace Walrod, vice president of the Orange County Business Council. With rising rents making it harder for low-paid workers to live in the area, the problem could get even worse.

“We talk about work force being the No. 1 issue, and a lot of time we think about computer software,” Walrod said. “But . . . these lower-priced jobs are just as much a part of the economic growth as the high-paying jobs.”

California’s minimum wage is $5.75 an hour, but it will jump to $6.75 over the next 15 months, beginning with a 50-cent increase Jan. 1. Some companies already pay much more than the new minimum.

Disney’s entry-level workers, such as ticket takers and food preparers, earn $7.21 to $8.50 an hour, recruitment director Greg Morley said.

Retailers across the country are now offering workers an average of $9 an hour, according to the National Retail Federation in Washington. Some are also offering signing bonuses of up to $300.

And more employers locally and elsewhere may have to keep boosting pay, since low-wage workers will jump ship for an additional 25 cents an hour, experts say.

“Even if you get them on board, people could leave at any moment,” said John Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago human resources consulting company.

All this could have serious implications for retailers, who have had a tough time rounding up enough holiday workers in recent years as the economy gained steam and unemployment shriveled.

“It’s going to be a real panic, I think,” Challenger said. “Retailers are in a very precarious position.”

As competition has intensified, companies have become increasingly creative about recruiting, including taking pains to make the process easier for applicants.

Best Buy Co., the nation’s largest electronics chain, now allows job seekers to conduct their first “interview” over the telephone by answering questions electronically.

“You can interview in your jammies,” said Donna Beadle, spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-based company.

The Hilton Anaheim recently hired Nan Oaxaca to find fresh ways to snag employees. She’s considering placing ads on movie screens and buying space on bus benches. The hotel has also raised its referral bonus from $50 to $75, and it gives an additional $75 to the referring employee if the new hire is still on the job after 90 days.

“I think a lot of recruiters got lazy,” Oaxaca said. “It was easy; now it’s hard. And we’re having to scramble to catch up.”

Some efforts seem more desperate than others.

Orchard Supply Hardware in Laguna Niguel, which has been losing workers to other businesses faster than it can hire them, even sought workers at an adult day-care center, not realizing that most occupants had health problems that prevented them from working.

“I was going everywhere I thought I might have some sort of audience,” said Orchard’s hiring manager, Lorraine Santoyo.

So grim was Orchard’s situation that at one point its work force shrank to 29 workers from the 60 the store prefers. Orchard, which pays most employees $8 an hour to start, now has about 45 workers.

“It’s like trying to put your finger in the dike, in all the holes, and you’re not winning,” Santoyo said.

SAS Retail Merchandise faces similar frustrations. The Anaheim-based company, which hires workers to stock grocery store shelves, pays a starting wage of $8.75 to $11 an hour, a $12.50 daily mileage reimbursement and contributes to its employees’ 401(k) plan. But the average worker stays just eight months to a year, said Tim Felix, the human resources manager.

“With the job market so tight, they’re going on to better-paying jobs or better hours,” Felix said. “People are looking for lots of benefits.”

With the company 20% understaffed, Felix attends job fairs and spends up to four days a week at state Employment Development Department offices from San Diego to Santa Barbara. He also distributes his business cards at car washes, fast-food restaurants and airports.

Job fairs are thriving in this climate, drawing record crowds and in some cases charging corporate recruiters hefty fees. At one recent fair in Anaheim, Disneyland Resort shelled out $5,000 for a booth and private room where recruiters could interview applicants--hiring some on the spot.

Disney has attended at least a dozen job fairs and has held two of its own since the middle of September, said Morley, the recruitment director.

When it comes to pounding the pavement, it’s hard to top Marriott’s Michalski and Felipe Guerena, who recruit for 11 hotels in southern Orange County.

From the moment they leave their Irvine headquarters, they are a blur of motion, even leaping from the car to hand out fliers if they spot a crowd at a bus stop.

No place is sacred. At barber shops and nail salons, they find “captive audiences.” They admit, a tad sheepishly, that they have even left fliers at a bar and a wedding chapel.

“You never know who needs a job,” Michalski said.

The recent excursion that included the Santa Ana laundermat was typical.

They stop at a convenience store, where Guerena hands a flier to a 44-year-old beef jerky salesman, who tries to hand it back. “I’ve got a job,” said Louie Watkins, a La Puente resident. But Guerena persisted: “What about your nieces or nephews?”

As good-natured as they are assertive, the pair seem immune to embarrassment.

When they arrive at Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, Guerena dons a sandwich board that exclaims, “Do we have the job for you!” and trolls the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, handing fliers to jurors, hot dog vendors--anyone who will take one.

Nevermind if they already have a job. “They might not be happy with what they have,” Michalski said.

The recruiters also have used more traditional methods of seeking out workers, such as contacting schools and job training groups. But they took their search to the streets as the job market tightened. “We knew with unemployment as low as it is, we needed to be creative,” Michalski said.

And it seems to have paid off. The number of applicants last year nearly doubled to 2,900, she said. The volume of applicants has leveled off this year, but Michalski figures that’s not bad, since the job market’s gotten tighter.

Hotels need an abundance of candidates partly because many new hires have trouble producing the needed documentation. After being notified recently that Social Security numbers didn’t match up with government records, Marriott said it had to notify dozens of workers that they must resolve the problem or lose their jobs. Many of the glitches apparently stem from clerical errors, misspelled names or other mistakes that can be corrected.

“We’ve had a very difficult time staffing our housekeeping department,” said Barbara Fagins, the Irvine Marriott’s human resources director. “In the last six months, it’s just been horrendous.”

During their recent trek to Santa Ana, Michalski and Guerena collected as many “no thanks” as they did “thanks” for their fliers.

Were they discouraged? Hardly.

Rather, Michalski began plotting a new strategy. Next time they visit the courthouse, she reasoned, they could arrive at 7:30 a.m., handing out fliers before court begins. Then, she theorized, early-arriving jurors would have something to read.

“You never know,” she said. “There’s a window of opportunity there.”