Temporary Jobs

Up to 6 million Americans, or about 5% of the work force, hold temporary jobs, the Labor Department said Thursday in the first official estimate of the temporary labor force. The results were well below estimates offered by private analysts. Some had suggested that as much as 30% of 123 million employed Americans were are in "contingent" jobs, or jobs structured to last a limited time.

Cindy Scalafani, a college-educated woman with 23 years of secretarial experience, wanted a full-time job, but after several months of searching, she came up empty. So Scalafani went to a personnel supply firm. She took a temporary position at T.J. Maxx in Irvine and then turned it into a permanent job. "When I came in as a temporary, I put my best foot forward and tried to really show them what I could do," Scalafani said.

When Gene R. Howard got a job delivering mail for the post office more than three decades ago, it was supposed to be a temporary position to help pay college bills. But today--34 years later--the Ventura man is still an employee of the vast network that delivers the nation's mail. And he was recently named area vice president for the U.S. Postal Service's Pacific area, a gigantic postal region that includes all of California and Hawaii.

The Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County is conducting interviews to determine who will get about 1,200 minimum-wage jobs up for grabs this summer. Although the temporary jobs will not be available until July, prospective workers must apply now to be considered, said Dennis Holloway, a job-training recruitment specialist. "It's first-come, first-served," he said. "People need to make appointments now."

Chilton Alphonse says kids who sell drugs are good business people who just need to learn how to use their sales skills for legitimate business deals. "I'm tired of our children's lives getting torn apart when they are arrested," said Alphonse, executive director of the Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation, a nonprofit resource center at 4828 Crenshaw Blvd. that works with inner-city kids.

For Simone Heard, the bombshell dropped on a sultry Tuesday morning in July. She had reached the bottom of a heap of documents she had been typing and sorting for days, and she triumphantly turned the work over to her supervisor. "She took it and said, 'This is it for you,' " Heard recalls. Heard wanted to cry but simply nodded. "I tried not to show any emotion. But I was very, very upset. I felt very demoralized." Heard felt entitled to neither an explanation nor a dramatic departure.

John Hopkins, principal of Truman Benedict Elementary School in San Clemente, has been appointed temporarily to a position in the Capistrano Unified School District administration. Hopkins became interim director of employee relations this week, succeeding Linda Kroner, who resigned to work for the Saddleback Community College District. Hopkins, a 31-year district employee, has been Benedict principal for four years.

Former City Councilman Robert Farrell, who resigned from his post after 17 years, is seeking a temporary job in Mayor Tom Bradley's office, city officials said. "Mr. Farrell has approached the mayor about a short-term project of no more than six weeks concerning economic development in South-Central Los Angeles," Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said. "The mayor has asked Mr. Farrell to provide a written proposal of the project."

Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, is freezing budgets for capital spending and salaries and imposing other news and business cutbacks to cope with weak financial results and the sluggish economy. The cuts, announced in an internal memo to managers Thursday, followed weeks of rumors about a possible retrenchment and triggered concern over possible future layoffs at the media and financial-industry giant.