Job fair draws interest of idled aerospace workers; many jobs are offered but many require relocation.

About 3,500 unemployed aerospace defense industry workers, many with advanced engineering degrees, years of experienced and families to support, turned out for a two-day job fair in downtown Los Angeles last week. There were far more job seekers than available positions.

The atmosphere at the Los Angeles Convention Center was anything but uplifting, but it wasn't as grim as might be expected because some people actually got jobs, or at least interviews for available positions.

According to fair organizers, all of the private company exhibitors had positions to fill. One of the 60 exhibitors, Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems Inc., a division of Chrysler Corp., had 230 openings said Bob Morris of C.L. Lovick & Associates in Inglewood, the organizer of Aerospace Outplacement Expo '94.

About 40 of the exhibitors were private companies, many from outside the area, with the rest being public agencies pitching employment and business opportunities, and schools offering retraining programs.

As indicated by recent financial results, the American automobile industry is growing and it was well represented at the fair. In addition to Chrysler, General Motors Corp. and several smaller companies were at the fair checking out applicants.

"We're looking to fill a half dozen or so engineering positions." said Ronald Ratajczak, director of composite engineering for BOC Lansing Automotive, a GM unit in Lansing, Mich.

"We've set up a couple of interviews and there is a good possibility we're going to fill some positions from this show," he said.

Lisa Adams, an account coordinator with automobile subcontractor Hawtal Whiting Inc. In Troy, Mich., said her $60 million-in-annual-revenues company had dozens of engineering and automobile design positions to fill. The jobs require a six-week training program and relocation to the Troy area.

By the morning of the fair's second day, the company had scheduled about 15 interviews with prospective employees for the positions with starting pay of about $15 an hour.

"I'd say it's about 50-50 between the people who would relocate and those that wouldn't. Sometimes when I tell them (job applicants) they would have to move to Michigan, they kind of get this strange look on their faces; other times it doesn't matter because they really need a job," said Adams.

Since 1990, aerospace/defense industry employment has dropped from about 300,000 in Los Angeles County to less than 200,000 because of cuts in Department of Defense spending. The spending cuts are expected to continue for the next several years, spurring more layoffs at local defense/aerospace companies.

According to Morris, the first day of the job fair drew about 1,500 job seekers but the second day, April 20, was expected to attract about 2,000 because of the television publicity the event had received.

In the past four or five years, Morris said, C.L. Lovick had organized about five aerospace job fairs in the Southland. "This is probably one of the better-attended ones because the word is that there are people who are hiring."

But there were still plenty of tales of woe among the job seekers who were lined up outside the exhibition hall waiting for it to open, and later inside going from booth to booth passing out resumes.

Mike Schultz was one of the job seekers. The 41-year-old engineer was laid off from the C-17 military cargo plane project at Douglas Aircraft Co. in Long Beach on Feb. 11 after a 10-year career at the company. The day before he attended the job fair, his wife, who is a buyer for a hospital, had given birth to their first child.

"At first I wasn't that discouraged. I looked on it as kind of a break. I worked on my golf game and it got better. Now I'm starting to get a little nervous. I've sent out about 55 resumes and I've gotten one fast phone interview out of it," he said.

He recounted the last time he looked for a job.

"When I moved out here from Texas 10 years ago, I had five interviews and two job offers in a month," he said.

Schultz, who said he has two masters degrees, noted he would take another job at a defense or aerospace company but would rather change industries. He said he would like to get into the medical manufacturing business.

"The population is aging and there is going to be more medical work. The defense business will never be the same," he said.

Another former Douglas worker, Carl Guenther, said he has been out of work almost 18 months. The 54-year-old estimated he had sent out 100 resumes and had "two or three close calls" where he almost got a job.

He said he hasn't felt any age discrimination in his job search because "I think employers are starting to realize they don't always get the best deal when they hire an immature young person with no experience."

Guenther also said he was prepared to leave the Southland, where he has lived since 1967.

"It's a lot different here now. It's kind of been shot to hell," he said.