THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996                TAG: 9604060307
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

A NEW TREND IN DOWNSIZING COMPANIES ARE STILL DUMPING WORKERS. BUT NOW, THEY ARE ALSO HIRING FOR JOBS THEY KNOW ARE LIKELY TO BE PHASED OUT.

Corporate downsizing may have hit its next phase.

Companies are still dumping workers they don't need. At the same time, they're filling openings, even positions that may be phased out in the future.

That means finding a job may be getting easier, but holding onto it is getting harder.

It's a new twist that manifested itself during the first three months of the year in the shortest job-search time in 16 years for managers and executives, according to a study by Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

It took the average out-of-work manager 2.8 months to find a new job, the survey found. That marked the fourth consecutive three-month period in which managers' job-search time dropped. The trend started in the first quarter of last year when the average job-search time was nearly 3.5 months.

``What I think is happening is many companies are seeing that if they hire someone today to handle a job, they are under less compunction to keep that person in the long run,'' said John Challenger, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

Downsizing has created a need for ``just-in-time'' hiring, Challenger said, because lean companies don't have the luxury of being able to pull workers from their normal jobs to work on projects.

``Just-in-time'' is a manufacturing concept that came in vogue a few years ago. It means that a factory doesn't stockpile several weeks of inventory needed to build its product - it just keeps a couple days' supply and has the parts delivered just in time for assembly.

Now workers are being hired just in time for big projects. Again, previous downsizings have created a ready-made work force for just-in-time hiring.

``They're not as willing to take people from other areas of the company, because the lead time is too long, the technology is changing and there's a lot of training needed,'' Challenger said.

``They know they can find the people in the labor market they need.''

KEYWORDS: DOWNSIZING

by CNB