In a new study that confirms the worst fears about the human cost of California's defense slump, UCLA researchers have found that half of the aerospace workers laid off in 1989 were jobless two years later or had left the state.
An additional analysis shows that workers laid off more recently are not faring any better. Just 16% of California aerospace workers laid off over a one-year period in 1991 and 1992 found new jobs quickly, and a third were jobless more than seven months.
The study, the first to track what has happened to aerospace workers who have lost jobs in the unprecedented downturn, found a pattern of chronic joblessness, falling incomes and downward mobility for tens of thousands of workers. A copy of the study, which will be released today, was made available to The Times.
"It is clear that aerospace workers are not going back to new employment," said UCLA Prof. Paul Ong, who authored the report along with graduate student Janette R. Lawrence. "The state's economy is in poor shape, so new jobs are not being created and there is not a demand for skills held by displaced aerospace workers."
Ong studied two groups of workers, one group laid off in 1989 and the other between April, 1991, and June, 1992. He found that 84% of the workers in the later group were unemployed for periods from a few weeks up to a year.
Laid-off aerospace workers in Los Angeles County had the hardest time finding new jobs, but workers in relatively affluent Orange County also had a tough time.
Older workers and engineers seemed to fare the worst. Forty-two percent of workers older than 55 and 41% of engineers faced long-term joblessness, defined as 27 weeks of unemployment.
The study examined unemployment data, tracking individuals to determine how long they remained on unemployment insurance and whether they later found jobs at other California companies. Thus, the study is based on hard data, rather than statistical estimates.
The workers laid off in 1989 were caught in a state economy undergoing wrenching changes. "California is encountering the process of high-wage, high-skill jobs being replaced by low-wage, low-skill jobs," the study said.
By region, the core of Los Angeles County fared the worst, with 60% of the 1989 group of workers failing to find new jobs or leaving the state. In Orange County, 56% of workers did not reappear on the job rolls.
