Analysts predict Los Angeles County will lose more than its share of jobs in banking.

California, and particularly Los Angeles, will suffer a disproportionate part of the loss of a projected 350,000 to 400,000 banking jobs disappearing in the next decade nationwide as part of the financial industry's restructuring, a new study predicts.

And some personnel experts say banking will become in the 1990s what aerospace was in the 1980s in terms of unemployment. Hardest hit will be those at the very top and very bottom of the employment ladder, banking experts agree.

Of the 1.6 million banking jobs in the United States now, 20 to 25 percent will disappear by the year 2000, according to Joel Friedman, partner with Andersen Consulting in San Francisco, which conducted the employment study.

California will suffer "a disproportionate share of the bank loss," Friedman said, and may be hit with as many as 40,000 to 50,000 job cuts.

California, particularly Los Angeles and San Francisco, will be hit hard because they are major financial centers and because of the Bank of America-Security Pacific merger, Friedman said.

"Bank employees often represent entry-level employees who are less educated, less mobile. The question is whether the economies of L.A. and San Francisco are robust enough to absorb the labor pool. Are there enough jobs?" Friedman said. Many people will have to be retrained for other jobs "and the transition costs are going to be staggering" for the taxpayer, he added.

The Bank of America-Security Pacific merger alone is expected to mean the loss of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs.

Bank of America hopes final approvals for the merger, including shareholders' votes and a green light from the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency, will occur by the end of February, said Charlie Coleman, bank spokesman.

Campbell Chaney, a banking analyst with the San Francisco-based firm of Sutro & Co., noted that Bank of America recently announced that the merger will result in a savings of $1.2 billion, and not the $1 billion first projected when the merger was announced in August.

"It's going to increase unemployment," Chaney said. The additional savings mean "they're finding more redundancies than when they first announced the merger and that means more of the human factor," he said.

He agreed with estimates the merger will mean loss of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs, noting many people are trying find other jobs now. "Probably as we speak there are people dusting off their resumes and jumping ship. I don't know where they're jumping to, though. They're probably jumping out of the banking business altogether," he said.

Dick Larsen, a partner with the Los Angeles-based executive search firm of Mitchell Larsen & Zilliacus who specializes in placing high-level banking executives, said he has been contacted by "dozens" of ranking executives from both Bank of America and Security Pacific. It is part of an overall trend of downsizing by financial institutions, he said.

"The bottom line is there is going to be a net exodus from the financial industry," Larsen said. The banking industry in this decade is going to go through the same downsizing process that aerospace went through in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he said.

Many bank executives have transferrable skills and may overcome the crisis of being laid off in a short period, and end up with comparable jobs in other industries, Larsen said. Many bankers have transferrable expertise in areas of technology, data processing, marketing and retailing, for example, Larsen explained.

"There are some superb credit people who will be able to manage work-out businesses," he said. But many people may have to leave California for the Midwest and other areas of the country which are recovering from the recession, he predicted.

"Creative people with general management skills will be able in a couple of years to make the transition well," Larsen said. "Of concern to me are very senior people who are very specialized, if that skill is not transferrable."

Middle managers are likely to be less specialized, Larsen said. "At both ends of the pole, people will be displaced," he added.

Robert Gnaizda, senior counsel for the Greenlighting Coalition, a coalition of minority and consumer groups that seeks to end discrimination by banks and other financial institutions against the minority community, agreed employees at the bottom will be most affected.

But Gnaizda said the number of cuts from the Bank of America merger and the general cuts nationwide are going to be worse than projected. "Our observation has been the cost-cutting measures projected by mergers are always overestimated. It is why we believe the 20,000 at Bank of America is only the beginning," Gnaizda said.

Tellers and other low-level bank employees are going to feel the hurt the worst, he projected.

"People are not going to be reemployed," he said. "Many of the banking skills are not transferrable, particularly because they are not transferrable at the same salary level. (Laid-off) banking employees are not going to be able to maintain their standard of living."

Gnaizda painted a bleak picture for these employees' future as well as the economic health of communities where they live. It is ironic, but bank employees who are laid off and unable to find work at comparable salaries will be the most likely to have their homes go into foreclosure, he said.