Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 3, 1993 TAG: 9312030145
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As thousands of former middle managers at IBM, General Motors and other corporate giants can attest, white-collar workers were hit especially hard in the recent recession. But government statistics now show a steady climb in the hiring of white-collar workers.
Even though managers and professionals such as physicians and accountants make up only 27 percent of the American work force, they have landed more than 60 percent of the 2.2 million net new jobs created over the past year. At the same time, the hiring of blue-collar employees has been largely stagnant.
The way economists and corporate executives put it, so many companies squeezed out so many managers during the recent slump that as the economy - and corporate America - expanded over the year, the demand for managers rebounded.
"Many companies that did without executives for a year or two couldn't stand it any more. They had to fill that slot they left unfilled for so long," said Patrick Pittard, managing partner of Heidrick & Struggles, one of the nation's largest executive search firms.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the pickup in white-collar hiring pointed to profound economic changes that bode ill for unskilled workers, because such a high percentage of new jobs require college degrees, MBAs or other sophisticated training.
"Long-term demand is shifting in favor of people with greater skills," Reich said.
Typical of this trend is what is happening at the Wachovia Corp., a bank-holding company in Winston-Salem, N.C. It has hired 250 management trainees over the last year and plans to hire another 250 next year, even as it lays off some tellers and data processing personnel whose work has been automated.
White-collar hiring may be one of the few bright spots in the employment picture, but it is not chugging along as fast as in previous recoveries. For example, in the 31 months since the 1990-91 recession ended, the number of white-collar jobs - including not just professionals and managers but also some sales, technical and administrative people - has grown 3.8 percent. In contrast, white-collar employment jumped 8 percent in the 31 months after the 1982 recession.
Blue-collar employment presents a more dismal picture, up just 0.3 percent since the recession ended, far lower than the 9.2 percent jump in blue-collar employment in the 31 months after the 1982 recession.
"I take issue with the notion that white-collar workers are an advantaged class of Americans who are enjoying open-ended prosperity in the '90s," said Stephen S. Roach, chief economist with Morgan Stanley & Co. "In an absolute sense, white-collar workers are doing better than blue-collar workers. But compared to past recoveries, the white-collar job machine is in a different gear."
The unemployment rate for white-collar workers is 4.2 percent; for blue-collar workers, it is just under 9 percent. Even so, white-collar unemployment jumped 70 percent during the recession, an unusual development. In several postwar recessions, white-collar unemployment did not rise.
"The typical recession is very much blue-collar oriented," said Lawrence H. Katz, the Labor Department's chief economist. "This one was much more egalitarian. Both white collars and blue collars got hit." The overall jobless rate is 6.8 percent, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics will issue its November employment report today.
Over the past year, one of the biggest jumps in employment has been the 400,000 leap, to 11.9 million, in the number of professionals at professional service industries, including lawyers, accountants, architects, registered nurses and engineers.
This jump was evident at Arthur Andersen & Co., the Chicago-based accounting and consulting firm. In the past year, it has expanded its work force by 2,000, to 29,000 workers; most of the newly hired have degrees in accounting, computer science, engineering or mathematics.
"We hire people according to what we think our work load will be," said Dennis Reigle, managing director for recruiting at Arthur Andersen. "The work is there right now."
by CNB