A Good Paper Shuffler Is Hard to Find

When a company has one job opening, says Lloyd Luoma, a Lockheed employment supervisor, "a little advertising and luck will fill it. But with a hundred openings at once, you have a problem." Many U.S. employers have such headaches, and are racking their corporate brains to find ways of meeting the increasingly severe shortage of skilled workers.

The supply is tight primarily because unemployment now runs at a low 3.4%. One inflationary consequence is that labor can demand--and get--some fancy rewards. Last week the Labor Department reported that in major contracts negotiated during this year's first quarter, unions got wage-and-fringe increases that averaged 6.3% annually.

Importing Men. Some companies are taking advantage of the Government's liberal rules for admitting immigrants who have needed skills. Faced with a dearth of pipe fitters and carpenters, Pittsburgh's Dravo Corp. has been importing European employees through Canada. Kaynar Manufacturing Co. of Fullerton, Calif., is seeking to bring in Japanese workers to meet its demand for machine-tool operators. New York City social-service agencies have begun referring welfare recipients to taxi companies, whose shortage of 2,500 drivers has aggravated the chronic scarcity of cabs on city streets. Brokerage houses offer as much as $20,000 for senior clerks to help cope with Wall Street's paper pileup.

Minneapolis-based Cargill, Inc., uses a converted Greyhound bus as a mobile personnel office, sends it on week-long excursions to recruit female help from small towns in Minnesota and neighboring states. The bus is outfitted much like a railroad parlor car, with couches, tables and a galley. It enables Cargill to avoid setting up recruiting offices in motels, an arrangement that tends to make parents of prospective employees wary.

TV Bonus. The surfeit of shortages is reflected in the rising fees charged by employment agencies and training schools. Some agencies collect as much as $2,400 to fill a $15,000 job. Rather than pay such bounties, Loral Corp., a Scarsdale, N.Y., electronics firm, offers a color television set to any employee recommending an engineer who remains with the company for at least three months. Marcor, Inc., formed by the merger of Montgomery Ward and Container Corp. of America, awards $100 merchandise credits to employees who help recruit new data processors and secretaries.

As it did during World War II, industry is compensating for the shortage of men by hiring women, including housewives who seek part-time jobs. Boston's John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. offers 25-hour work weeks within which keypunch operators can almost select their own hours. St. Alexius Hospital in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village has set up a nursery where working mothers can leave preschool children during the day.

Recruiting in the Army. Another highly successful innovation is Project Transition. The program, backed by unions, the Labor Department and the Pentagon, encourages G.I.s with limited skills or education to take twelve-week job-training courses during their last six months of service. Some courses are conducted by the Labor Department, others by private industry--often right on the base. During the past 15 months, nearly 60,000-servicemen from 254 bases have received such instruction, frequently with guarantees of jobs if they complete the course. Lockheed Shipbuilding & Construction trains marine pipe fitters at Fort Lewis, Wash.; IBM teaches office-machine repair at 16 sites, and Humble Oil prepares service-station managers at 33 locations. Ford and General Motors use Project Transition to recruit salesmen and mechanics for their dealers. Anticipating his discharge next August after 20 years in the Army, 1st Sergeant Denver McAllister, 38, is learning to be a mechanic in a Ford course at Fort Knox, Ky. "I didn't really have anything going in a trade," he says. "Now I feel I'll have a jump."

When it comes to hiring executives, private industry enjoys no such cooperation with the military. Since the services do all they can to keep their better-educated men, some corporate recruiters hold secret job interviews in off-post hotels, even offer G.I.s cash for tips on prospective employees nearing discharge. The most immediate hope for easing the labor shortage remains an end to the Viet Nam war. Even a limited cut in the size of the armed forces would release a large supply of man power for industry.

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