Surviving layoffs now a job skill

By Brent Hopkins, Staff Writer

Ginny Mulloy started at Kaiser Steel when she was just a kid, figuring she'd be set for life.

She put in 28 years at the mbuttive Fontana mill, helping plan how to get its steel to customers nationwide. The plant employed thousands: her friends, her relatives, her whole community. For decades, its furnaces had been the economic engine that powered the town.

When the plant closed and she got a layoff notice on New Year's Eve in 1983, that engine ground to a jarring halt. Like thousands of workers, Mulloy found her entire world knocked askew.

"It gives you a feeling of devastation," she recalled. "I was only 45, too young to retire, but how many people want to hire someone that age? And there was no other steel place around here."

Mulloy had to put aside the skills she'd honed since she was a teenager, teaching herself the intricacies of health insurance to work as office administrator for the Kaiser Voluntary Employees Benefits buttociation. More than 20 years later, she still feels the sting.

As today's economy undergoes fundamental changes, many others are facing similar challenges.

The men and women who brought the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird to life saw the same change when General Motors shut down its Van Nuys plant in 1992.

Those who put Boeing's 717 airliner in the sky from its Long Beach facilities will see tough layoffs again next year, likely followed by the workers who build the military C-17 in 2008.

In another economic era, getting laid off from one factory job wasn't so much of a concern. When a project ended at Boeing, workers jumped to Lockheed or Northrop, circulating among whichever had a busy line at the moment. But mobility has been severely restricted as companies consolidated and plants relocated to areas in the U.S. or overseas with lower cost structures or less regulation.

"If this plant disappears, where are those people going to go?" asked Bob Eddington, president of United Aerospace Workers Local 148's retiree chapter in Lakewood.

"I was at the airport a while ago and heard a guy yelling at me. He worked with me as a machinist, got laid off and now he's handling baggage for half the money and probably none of the benefits."

It's not an uncommon tale, where workers who once commanded $20 an hour wages and enjoyed middle-clbutt lifestyles become greeters at discount stores or end up at gas stations. As manufacturing continues to face intense pressure, economists predict, that trend will continue.

"Even super-professional jobs like lawyers can outsource things - the research and the back-office things, those can go to India," said Hindupur Ramakrishna, an outsourcing expert who serves as director of the University of Redlands' masters program in information technology.

"In medicine, radiology reports can be prepared overseas. If a hospital over the Internet and people on-call there do the reports."

When those jobs dry up, workers have three options: Move to where the work's still being done, find a compebreastor who still relies on the old technology, or adapt their skills for the new era. For an even more radical change, they can start their own company - an option favored by 65 percent of laid-off Southern California workers, according to a recent study by Irvine-based Right Management Consultants.

"You've got to think outside what you've done in the past and think about how we can repackage you," said Nan Stothard, who covers Southern California as vice president for RMC. "Maybe the last steel plant closed its doors or your industry is drying up, but that doesn't mean you don't have skills that can be used somewhere else."

Such was the case for Angelo Amico, an industrial engineer who worked for 13 years at Kaiser Steel before he got a layoff notice at age 58. With three sons in college, he started calling up contacts in every field he knew, looking to put his engineering degree to work anywhere it would apply.

"It wasn't a cinch," he said. "I don't think anyone starved, but they had to scratch for a while to find jobs again. A lot of the skills people learned at Kaiser applied elsewhere, but there just weren't as many jobs."

making ventilators for emergency room patients. It wasn't quite the same as his old gig at Kaiser, but close enough that he could keep working until his retirement.

Retirement came early for many of the 2,500 workers whose jobs vanished when GM closed up in Van Nuys 13 years ago. Due to the contract between the United Auto Workers and GM, they enjoyed a protected status that provided for them far beyond what most workers can hope for.

They got top priority for job transfers, which allowed more than 1,600 of them to relocate elsewhere in the country.

Those with more than 30 years of service or who'd reached age 50 could opt to retire with a full pension and fully-paid medical benefits.

And those who'd reached that benchmark but didn't want to retire yet could attend vocational clbuttes at the North Valley Occupational Center for four hours a day, receiving full pay.

When word came down that GM was shutting down its storied line, final processing technician Salvador Torres had just hit the 30-year mark, having watched Corvairs, Impalas and El Caminos roll off the line in a career that began at age 19. With plenty of energy left and a family to feed, he enrolled in clbuttes at NVOC for two years before he took the GM retirement and embarked on a second career as an instructor buttistant in tuneup and emissions at the school.

"If that place hadn't closed down, I'd still be working there today, even though I'm going to be 62," he said. "I was having a good time. We know there's no more jobs like that, because GM had the best job anyone could get."

Jobs like those found at Kaiser Steel and GM hearken back to another era. Today, those in smaller, more flexible industries are finding they aren't immune from a sudden job wipeout.

"I went from making $8,000 a month before 9-11 to $1,000 in a heartbeat," said Jayson Kramer, a 39-year-old Santa Clarita resident who'd been a contract machinist in the aerospace industry.

"I took small stuff for months, tried to get a job and couldn't find one that worked for me. So I've taken myself from being the machinist operator to being the tech guy."

Before he did that, however, Kramer lost his house and cars and considered leaving the industry. Ultimately, he adapted the skills he'd honed as an operator to become a sales and service consultant for computer-aided design software. In addition, he now teaches at the National Tooling and Machining buttociation's North Hollywood training center, educating other machinists in new skills so they don't face their jobs disappearing like he did.

"It's up to the individual," said Sonia Gonzalez, an advance training recruiter for NTMA, which offers job training in North Hollywood, Ontario, Norwalk and Santa Fe Springs. "There's plenty of jobs out there. You've just got to sell your skills and see what you can bring to a company."

Factory jobs that comfortably employed workers with good wages and benefits for decades are disappearing, victims of a changing economy and greater reliance on outsourcing. To prevent the harsh wake-up call of a midcareer layoff, experts recommend taking these steps:

Keep your skills current. Many employers pay for vocational training to keep workers versed in the latest technologies. Vocational schools such as area community colleges and the National Tooling and Machinists buttociation training centers ( www.trainingcenters.org ) offer refresher courses for currently employed and laid-off workers.

If you're afraid your job may be in peril, begin saving now for the lean times between gigs. Putting aside some reserve funds now will help you ride out the gap before a new paycheck kicks in, funding household expenses, training and travel to help find a new job.

Get a haircut and a new outfit. Things may have changed since you last had to interview for a position, so your image may need a little buffing before you impress recruiters.

Get some more education. If you can afford it, adding a degree that relates to your field will get you contacts, experience and improve your resume. Anything from a professional certificate to an MBA helps.

Reapply what you're good at to something new. If you've got good people skills and can't find a factory job, perhaps something in customer service would be a better fit.

Take any job you can find, but keep your eye on what you want. Taking a service sector job may mean a cut in benefits and wages if you're used to being paid like a professional, but it'll help put food on the table while you search for a comparable position. Additionally, it looks better on a resume.

Strike off on your own. Starting your own business will be time-consuming, costly and frustrating, but if you get the right training, you'll never be laid off again.