Los Angeles Employment

Exports from the Los Angeles area, particularly to the Pacific Basin, are surging. So that means the number of trade-related jobs in Southern California should also be rising sharply, right? Not quite. At the Port of Los Angeles, for instance, "there's not really that much more employment" among the dozens of firms that use and service the port despite the jump in exports of U.S. goods, said Robert D. Kleist, corporate adviser to Evergreen International Corp.

Winners call it "recruitment." Losers call it "poaching." It's the practice of luring companies away from rival locales to capture jobs, and it's hard to find a Los Angeles company that hasn't been courted. Now, L.A. is fighting back. Councilwoman Laura Chick wants the city to provide a package of tax breaks to entice new businesses. She favors giving tax rebates to companies based on the number of jobs they bring to L.A. or create through expansion.

Growth in entertainment-related fields could erase the huge numbers of jobs lost in the aerospace industry in recent years, the chairman of a coalition of San Fernando Valley government and business leaders said Thursday. Large aerospace employers, such as the giant Lockheed Corp.

Amid the decay of a derelict factory, a small group of community and business leaders gathered in September 1993 to announce one of the largest post-riot efforts to funnel jobs and investment into south Los Angeles. The fledgling Neighborhood Beverage Co. pledged $28 million to reopen the former Seven-Up bottling plant on Alameda Street, south of downtown Los Angeles, and hire as many as 250 residents from the neighboring Pueblo del Rio housing project.

The Simi Valley City Council may offer a higher financial incentive to entice a major music and video tape firm to move a distribution warehouse to the city from Chatsworth, Mayor Greg Stratton said Thursday. The City Council on Monday will consider waiving an extra $63,000 in fees and costs for Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corp. because company executives complained about the offer of only $105,000 in incentives and have promised to bring more jobs to the area than initially estimated.

Los Angeles will face ever larger municipal financial problems over the next two decades unless thousands of jobs are created to keep pace with a steady increase in population, a panel of economists and urban planners concluded Thursday. Speaking to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, the panel also agreed that city budgets could be in danger of running deficits of $125 million to $182 million a year if the city's industries continue moving to suburban cities and other states.

A lot of government programs for poor communities begun in the lifetime of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are being cut back now. But organizations born in that time go on and, indeed, are finding new ways to grow here in Southern California. Watts Health Foundation has bought a majority stake in Family Savings Bank with the aim of tapping and supporting economic opportunities in South-Central Los Angeles and other neighborhoods.

Los Angeles loses a prestigious corporate headquarters but celebrates the prospect of retaining thousands of jobs. And First Interstate customers can still expect to bank at their favorite branch--and get more direct-mail pitches for credit cards. These are among the likely effects if the proposed merger announced Monday between First Interstate Bancorp and First Bank System Inc. of Minneapolis ultimately takes place.

Winners call it "recruitment." Losers call it "poaching." It's the practice of luring companies away from rival locales to capture jobs, and it's hard to find a Los Angeles company that hasn't been courted. Now, L.A. is fighting back. Councilwoman Laura Chick wants the city to provide a package of tax breaks to entice new businesses. She favors giving tax rebates to companies based on the number of jobs they bring to L.A. or create through expansion.

Amid the decay of a derelict factory, a small group of community and business leaders gathered in September 1993 to announce one of the largest post-riot efforts to funnel jobs and investment into south Los Angeles. The fledgling Neighborhood Beverage Co. pledged $28 million to reopen the former Seven-Up bottling plant on Alameda Street, south of downtown Los Angeles, and hire as many as 250 residents from the neighboring Pueblo del Rio housing project.

A lot of government programs for poor communities begun in the lifetime of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are being cut back now. But organizations born in that time go on and, indeed, are finding new ways to grow here in Southern California. Watts Health Foundation has bought a majority stake in Family Savings Bank with the aim of tapping and supporting economic opportunities in South-Central Los Angeles and other neighborhoods.

Los Angeles loses a prestigious corporate headquarters but celebrates the prospect of retaining thousands of jobs. And First Interstate customers can still expect to bank at their favorite branch--and get more direct-mail pitches for credit cards. These are among the likely effects if the proposed merger announced Monday between First Interstate Bancorp and First Bank System Inc. of Minneapolis ultimately takes place.

Growth in entertainment-related fields could erase the huge numbers of jobs lost in the aerospace industry in recent years, the chairman of a coalition of San Fernando Valley government and business leaders said Thursday. Large aerospace employers, such as the giant Lockheed Corp.

Los Angeles will face ever larger municipal financial problems over the next two decades unless thousands of jobs are created to keep pace with a steady increase in population, a panel of economists and urban planners concluded Thursday. Speaking to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, the panel also agreed that city budgets could be in danger of running deficits of $125 million to $182 million a year if the city's industries continue moving to suburban cities and other states.

The first Southland employer convicted of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants was fined $1,500, ordered to perform 500 hours of community service and placed on three years' probation. Maria Leticia Ruiz de Cruz, former manager of a Los Angeles-based medical clinic, received aa stern lecture Monday from U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird for exploiting undocumented doctors and taking opportunities away from Latino physicians who are in the country legally.

The former manager of a Los Angeles medical clinic became the first employer in Southern California convicted of knowingly accepting counterfeit documents in the hiring of illegal immigrants, the U.S. attorney's office announced Monday. A federal court jury convicted Maria Leticia Ruiz de Cruz of Ontario of two counts of knowingly accepting counterfeit immigration documents, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Brent A. Whittlesey, who prosecuted the case.

Most people involved in the sport of golf spend a lot of time hitting the ball. For Todd Wickey and Richard de la Torre, it's a question of the ball hitting them. Wickey and De la Torre are among the stalwart few who venture out onto golf driving ranges in funny-looking machines to retrieve golf balls. What makes their work exciting is that they do it while other people are driving golf balls--usually with considerable force, and often right at them.

A mile from one of the flash points of last year's riots, a huge crowd of a different sort gathered Friday--about 3,000 inner-city residents, many in business suits with resumes in hand, seeking hard-to-come-by work. The occasion was a community job fair organized by several South-Central Los Angeles elected officials and held in the parking lot of the Playground, a Florence Avenue sporting goods apparel shop that was opened after the riots by gang members gone straight.