Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1993                   TAG: 9307070286
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA                                LENGTH: Medium

IT'S TOUGH TO MATCH SKILLS, 2ND CAREER

The nation's employers had nearly 110 million people on their payrolls at the beginning of June, more than ever before in U.S. history.

But that didn't mean new job opportunities for millions of workers who lost their jobs in the corporate slashbacks of recent years.

For many of those workers, the bitter truth is that their skills, experience and salary expectations don't match what employers need - either now or in the future.

No one, for example, is ready to offer a steady paycheck to 49-year-old Rufus Decker, who had been chief financial officer of a Contel Corp. subsidiary before his job was merged out of existence 18 months ago.

The obstacle? He's overqualified. Corporations now want entry-level accountants. Decker has found a new job, but not one with a guaranteed paycheck: A few weeks ago he decided to go into the mortgage-banking business, where he will work on straight commission.

Nor did the employment record provide much comfort to John McFarland, 49, a warehouse truck driver at Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s Philadelphia warehouse for 30 years before it closed in April. He's heard little but discouraging words from the job market since January.

His problem? His pay was twice that of many available jobs, even those such as computer technician or technician that would require specialized training.

Such mismatches are nothing new. Economist S. Lael Brainard of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that since 1954, about 40 percent of unemployment has resulted from the kind of industrial restructuring that has been so much in the news recently, and that the 1990-1991 period wasn't unusual in this respect. Her data don't cover 1992 or 1993.

Now, however, the mismatch problem has spread beyond the ranks of blue-collar workers such as John McFarland into the realm of college-educated managerial, professional and technical workers.

Former managers find employers are looking for hands-on workers, not supervisors, or for people to manage retail stores rather than corporate departments. Scientific and technical specialists find their skills don't fit the available job niches, or have become obsolete. Those who've worked for 10 or more years find the demand is for entry-level workers at uncomfortably low pay levels.

Among the college-educated, job-skill mismatches are particularly common in technical and scientific fields. In those areas, specialized expertise is needed to land a job, but that same expertise may not have a wide market, or may become obsolete very quickly.

The skill-match problem is exacerbated by employers' unwillingness to train people, even those with related experience.

For those who don't have college degrees, the picture is even bleaker, as they find themselves bumped out of the labor force entirely.

Career counselors say that, in contrast to technical workers, managers do better if they are generalists with wide-ranging backgrounds - and that many suffer from having focused their careers too narrowly.

For example, overseas experience is a big plus in today's market. But until recently, foreign assignments were considered career backwaters, and many managers avoided them.

Then there's the overexperience mismatch, which haunts many who have spent 10 or more years working, especially if they have risen into the management ranks. Employers now are seeking to fill lower-level, hands-on positions. Dislocated managers are not considered for those jobs.

"You see people in their 40s who have become very management-oriented and have lost some of the `doing' skills," said June Barry, vice president of human resources for Betz Laboratories in Trevose, Pa.

"They're too young to retire, but we don't need them any more."

Finally, the new jobs frequently pay less than those that are lost. A recent workplace survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that of 2.7 million displaced workers who were in new, full-time jobs in January 1992, 43 percent were paid less than they previously earned. And for nearly one in four, the pay cut was big - more than 20 percent, not adjusted for inflation.

The nation's 17.9 million manufacturing workers - down from 19.1 million in 1990 - have seen their average hourly wage drop from $8.28 an hour in 1990, when the recession began, to $8.02 last month in inflation-adjusted 1982 dollars.

Mark Blacker, 42, earned $60,000-plus as a marketing manager for a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning company, enjoying full benefits. "My job was eliminated by a telephone call from the president of the company, saying, `We just don't need you or the division any more. The business has gone.' "

He has since had four or five interviews and been offered two jobs in the same industry - one at $39,000 without benefits and one at $33,000 with limited benefits.

"I see the same type of positions I held now paying 20 or 25 percent less. I rejected it because of the level, what was expected, and no benefits. I simply couldn't survive on that."