The Agony of the Overskilled Man

"As head of the Plans Branch for a large staff supporting Projects Gemini and Apollo, I coordinated the development of plans for astronaut recovery. Although recovering astronauts is not your responsibility, I believe the planning, innovating and problem solving necessary for its successful execution is also required in your business."

THAT excerpt from a job seeker's letter points up one of the nation's most perplexing problems as it de-emphasizes the role of defense spending. Deep cutbacks in military and space expenditures are throwing onto the labor market a corps of highly educated and experienced men and women. To their dismay, these individuals are learning that being overskilled--or too narrowly skilled--can be almost as bad as being undereducated or underskilled. The elite jobless, many of them middle-aged men with families, must try to convince skeptical employers that their mastery of such subjects as missile design, spy-satellite control or the behavior of exotic metals at high altitudes can be adapted to non-defense work.

Ph.D.s' Dream World. These specialists are the vanguard of an army that seems sure to grow. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Moot last week told defense manufacturers that the annual rate of new contract awards fell from a peak of $42.3 billion in 1968 to $34.4 billion in June, and will drop to $28 billion by next June.

At the last count in May, unemployment among the nation's 1,100,000 engineers had leaped to 29,000, from only 4,000 in 1969. Since May, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (A.I.A.A.) estimates, 16,000 advanced engineers and scientists have been laid off in aerospace alone. Layoffs in the ordnance and instrument industries, and at campus research labs doing military work, add to the trouble.

The military and space specialists are being cut loose at a time when general sluggishness in the economy is reducing job opportunities in civilian business. But many of the superskilled might not do well even in a boom. Job-hunting is one knack that they lack. Their experience has been limited to choosing among employers eager to hire them at relatively high salaries.

Geoffrey Potter, an A.I.A.A. official, recalls that a few years ago an aerospace engineer "would work with Lockheed on a big contract, be laid off on a Friday when the job was finished, and on the following Monday, North American would pick him up. He may even have already made a commitment months ahead to go with North American as soon as his Lockheed job terminated." The greatest problem of many such men. Potter adds, is to admit to themselves that they must start looking for a job. He knows of Ph.D.s who have not worked for a year but who still feel that they wilt surely be rehired when the next large contract comes in.

Secrecy Barrier. Active job seekers, however, have had little better luck. Ed Spoehel, 44, a computer-program designer, was laid off on Aug. 3 from a job with TRW Inc. that paid around $20,000. He now subsists on weekly unemployment compensation of $65, some income that his wife picks up writing a column for a local paper, and regular withdrawals from his savings account. He has phoned at least 100 companies but got "only two meaningful interviews"--which did not land a job. His work was not only specialized but so secret that he cannot describe exactly what he did. All he is at liberty to say is that he wrote a complex form of computer language highly prized by the military--for the control of spy satellites, among other things--but not much used in civilian work.

Civilian employers often do not want defense specialists. Some companies have placed want ads that state: "Aerospace experience is not acceptable." Aerospace men have been used to demanding the most advanced parts and tools on jobs for which the Government paid the bills; rightly or wrongly, they have a reputation for lacking the cost consciousness necessary in commercial work. Prospective employers also feel that defense specialists have a condescending attitude toward civilian jobs. Melvin E. Stevens, 57, an engineer laid off by North American in Columbus in April 1969, took a job a year later with the state highway department. Since he is not in aerospace, he says, ''essentially I still consider myself unemployed."

Tough Transfers. Walter Fleming, 51, of Los Angeles, a longtime specialist in recruiting engineers for aerospace companies, knows of men who were once making $25,000 to $30,000 a year and are now collecting welfare or working as dishwashers. Fleming himself has been out of work since May 1 and has sought jobs that would have paid half his former $15,600 salary--with no luck so far. Typically, he has sent letters to employers across the country, all in vain.

Many of the unemployed specialists are eager to use their skills to help solve some of the nation's housing, pollution or transport problems. But the Government has yet to supply much money to help defense companies convert for peacetime battles, or to assist laid-off specialists in transferring their skills to other areas. Washington could indeed do more by awarding to defense firms some major research contracts in urgent civilian areas or by sponsoring retraining and relocation programs for the overskilled jobless; present training programs are directed almost entirely at the hard-core unemployed. Educated manpower is one of the most important resources of an industrial nation, and it should not be wasted.

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