Job Boom Reaches Fringes of Labor Force

Noralee Gay is a single mother who decided to remain at home rather than work after her daughter was born four years ago. She has struggled and scrimped, forgoing extras for herself to keep her little girl clothed and fed.

Is Gay disheartened? Not a whit.

In fact, Gay is one of the thousands of Californians who had long ago dropped out of the work force--either by choice or because they had given up the job search--who are back at work courtesy of the booming economy.

The latest unemployment figures released by the state Friday confirmed the trend. State officials said the unemployment rate rose slightly, to 6% in March from 5.9% in February, largely because more people have returned to the labor force after a long absence.

In the last year, employers have added thousands of jobs in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. As a result, businesses’ appetite for workers is so voracious that they are snapping up the stay-at-home moms and the retired, as well as the disadvantaged and the discouraged.

These are the people who have been out of work so long that they were no longer officially counted as part of the available labor force.

Now, not only are many of them back in the job hunt, they are getting hired by employers surprisingly quickly. Some companies are offering them opportunities for training and advancement; others are amenable to flexible work schedules.

“The labor market is so strong that it is pulling in the folks that have been left out for much of the past decade,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Regional Financial Associates, a research and consulting firm in West Chester, Pa.

“We’re seeing that in the relatively strong labor force growth and the declining unemployment rates across industries, across educational levels, across race, across sex.”

The number of California residents who technically are unemployed--those who are out of work and actively seeking jobs--has plunged to 931,000, from more than 1.5 million in October 1992. And the number of those out of a job for at least six months and still looking has fallen from a peak of 320,000 in October 1994 to just 73,500.

The pool of persistently unemployed job seekers “is getting pretty thin,” said Ted Gibson, chief economist at the state Department of Finance.

The national labor force participation rate--the share of the working-age population that is employed--is at an all-time high of 67.1%.

Time to Get Back to Work

In Los Angeles and Orange counties, which had lagged behind the rest of the country by a wide margin during the recession, the participation rates are coming back. In Los Angeles County, the rate is 64%, up from a low of about 62% in 1993, and in Orange County it has rebounded to nearly 65%, from a low of 63.7% in 1995.

Economists expect the rates to continue rising this year because of people like Gay.

Raised in Anaheim, Gay, 33, attended Fullerton College for a time, with dreams of becoming a veterinarian. But money was tight, so she quit school and started working as an accountant.

When she became a mother, she decided to stay home until her daughter, Kaylei, entered school. Without help from the girl’s father, however, Gay was forced to live with her mother and do without such basics as a car. But she has always been determined to make sure her daughter “never went without. She had three square meals a day, clothes and shoes.”

With Kaylei scheduled to enter kindergarten in the fall, Gay decided it was time to get back to work.

One weekend last month, the Anaheim resident faxed 250 resumes. The next Monday, she received 15 calls asking her to come for interviews; on Tuesday she fielded another 18 calls. By the end of the week, she had several offers. About two weeks ago, she started a job as an accountant at a computer components manufacturer.

To her delight, employers wanted her so much they met her salary requests.

“It makes me feel great,” she said of her return to the working world. “It’s a reason to wake up in the morning.”

Having a job “will most certainly boost my self-esteem,” she added.

Gay now wants to buy a car, save for a house and marry her longtime boyfriend. One day, she hopes to fulfill her dream of becoming a veterinarian.

For Some, Success Is Out of Reach

To be sure, the economic bounty isn’t shared by everyone.

Despite the plenitude of jobs, many remain on the fringes of the labor force. They find that stable, long-term employment with full benefits is still out of their reach.

Dianna Willey of Long Beach was a secretary for many years, until the company she worked for went out of business. She then spent several years working as a nanny for Navy families, but when the Long Beach Naval Station closed in 1991, she was out of work again.

For the last few years, Willey has shuffled from one temporary clerical job to another.

“I’ve sent my resume a lot of places,” she said. “They say, ‘I’ll pay you $6 or $7 an hour, and no benefits.’ I can’t live on that.”

Willey earns extra money driving an elderly woman around in the evenings. Even so, she’s gone into debt just to make ends meet and has moved twice in the last year to smaller, less expensive apartments.

“I know there’s something there for me,” she said wistfully. “I just don’t know where or when.”

Regaining Self-Respect

Nonetheless, many hard-luck tales are turning around these days as businesses start to recruit the folks they once ignored, including those on welfare.

For those who haven’t held a job for years, being in the working world again means more than money. It’s also a chance to regain self-respect and achieve personal fulfillment.

That’s how it is for Jeffery Richardson.

It wasn’t that long ago that Richardson hit bottom. After being out of work for five years, he entered drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Once he got clean, the Compton man, now 44, realized he “didn’t know how to go about finding a job.”

Then a neighbor told him about a program run by Marriott International Inc. that trains disadvantaged individuals for jobs in the hospitality industry. After going through the program, he started working at the Los Angeles International Airport Marriott last year, and now he manages supplies for the hotel’s housekeeping department.

Richardson plans to go back to school soon so he can win a job in Marriott’s engineering department. Now living with his mother, he’s saving for a car and his own apartment.

“It’s an indescribable feeling when you pick up that paycheck,” he said.

As more people have gone back to work, the welfare caseload in Los Angeles County has declined 21% in the last three years, to fewer than 580,000. In Orange County, the number of cases has fallen from a peak of 44,500 in 1994 to about 28,000 currently, a 37% drop.

The strong economy is “far and away the No. 1 reason” for the decrease, said Angelo Doti, director of the Family Self-Sufficiency division of Orange County’s Social Services Agency.

“We have employers calling us, saying, ‘Send us your welfare recipients and we’ll hire them.’ ”

The timing couldn’t be better.

Over the next few years, the local economy has to absorb thousands of welfare recipients who will be required to find jobs under the federal welfare reform law. Charged with implementing the statute, counties are in the fortunate position of seeing their welfare rolls shrink even before their programs take full effect.

Contributing to the Economy

Over time, those returning to the labor force will gain skills and experience that will help them remain employable even after the economy eventually cools off. And as their financial situation improves, they will begin paying more taxes, spending more money on goods and services and buying homes and cars.

“Instead of requiring government aid, they’ll be contributing to government coffers,” economist Zandi said. “The societal benefits are enormous.

“You get this opportunity genuinely once in a decade.”

Best of all, economists say, the force of new job creation is so powerful that it’s offsetting the continuing consolidation and layoffs in financial services, aerospace and other industries. The vast majority of those who lose their jobs aren’t staying out of work long enough to be numbered among the longtime unemployed.

What a difference from just three or four years ago. Back then, the Santa Ana chapter of Experience Unlimited, a volunteer organization that provides workshops and job-search assistance to out-of-work executives, engineers and other professionals, had 250 regular participants.

Today, the group numbers about 30. At a recent orientation meeting, four people showed up. Hal Altshuler, a retired aerospace executive who runs the program, opened by explaining that he was substituting for the volunteer who had been scheduled to brief them. She had found a job.

One of the unemployed professionals in attendance was Lou Eros, 43, of Irvine, who lost his job as a telecommunications executive when his employer went out of business Jan. 1.

If Eros was worried, he certainly didn’t show it. All his former colleagues had found new jobs, some for higher pay, he said. He expected to find a position within a month.

“Pretty soon, something will break. There are definitely jobs available in the field,” he said. The telecommunications business is “breaking open. It will probably double again in a few years.”

Economist Zandi said prospects also are bright for many other industries, and the demand for workers shows no signs of letting up any time soon.

“Any way you slice it,” he said, “if people want to find jobs, then it’s more than likely they’ll find them.”

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* STEADY STATE: California’s jobless rate rose a bit in March, mostly because of a surge in job-seekers. D1.