Early 2001 Job Gains Drive Employers
By RAJIV VYAS
Disney stole the show again this year,and not just with its flashy fireworks and a new theme park.
Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. widened its lead as Orange County’s largest employer in the past year with a 39% jump,an added 6,000 people,to 21,275 local workers at its theme parks, hotels and other ventures. That’s according to this week’s Business Journal list, which ranks companies, retailers, universities and others by their local employment.
Even the fast-growing No. 2 University of California, Irvine, which added 851 people,a 6% jump to 14,981 in all,only could watch Disney pull away.
Disney’s hiring spree came as it opened the California Adventure theme park and the adjacent Grand California Hotel and Downtown Disney retail and entertainment center early this year.
The company’s employment growth stopped by mid-year, when it laid off about 200 in OC as part of a companywide cutback.
Disney’s ranking is based on a yearly average of its employment here, which typically spikes in the summer and holiday seasons.
The company’s current OC tally stands at about 22,000 jobs.
In all, the 50 employers on this year’s list employ 201,988 people, a 5% increase from both their own numbers of a year ago and the total of the 50 employers on last year’s list.
But Disney accounted for the bulk of the growth among this year’s group.
Taking the Mouse out of the mix, the remaining 49 companies added jobs at a 1.5% clip, less than the county’s job-growth rate of about 2% in the same period.
No. 3 Boeing Co., which a few years back was OC’s largest employer, saw an 8% drop in local employees to 11,179 people.
In August, Boeing announced plans to transfer 1,100 jobs from Huntington Beach to other states.
The company’s Irvine-based Connexion by Boeing in-flight Internet access unit also cut 200 jobs in October.
No. 4 Boise, Idaho-based Albertson’s Inc. added 200 people in OC, a 2% gain to 9,500 workers here.
In late 2000, the supermarket and drug store operator relocated administrative and distribution operations from Buena Park to a Fullerton site formerly occupied by Hewlett-Packard Co. But Albertson’s employment gains came from new stores here.
Two hospital operators grabbed the Nos. 5 and 6 spots: Orange-based St. Joseph Health System, which saw an 8% increase to 9,435 OC workers; and Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., which saw a 5% increase to 8,389 people at its OC hospitals and administrative offices.
Indeed, healthcare surpassed retail as the largest sector on the list.
Nine healthcare-related companies,including No. 32 Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc. and No. 39 Irvine-based Allergan Inc.,employed close to 40,000 people in OC, up from 37,400 people last year. The healthcare companies together added 2,534 jobs here, a growth rate of 6.8%.
In all, healthcare accounted for 20% of the jobs among the top 50 employers in OC.
No. 14 Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp. posted the biggest percentage increase in employees and the second-largest numerical gain after Disney.
The engineering services company added 1,383 people to its OC payroll,a 51% increase to 4,083 workers.
More power plant and public works projects drove demand for people at the company’s headquarters.
Disney, Fluor and St. Joseph together added about 8,300 jobs and accounted for 92% of the total job growth at the 50 employers.
But some retailers continued to hire aggressively.
No. 8 Minneapolis-based Target Corp. added 306 people at new stores here, a 7% gain to 4,878 OC workers. That moved Target up from the No. 11 spot on last year’s list.
No. 12 Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. upped its OC headcount by 12% to 4,485 people.
Those gains were nearly offset by big layoffs at other stores such as No. 35 Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc.: overall, store operators on the list increased their headcounts by a modest 1.5%.
Taking out Disney, Fluor and the healthcare sector, there are clear signs that big employers have been feeling the pressure of a downtrodden economy.
The remaining companies on the list actually were down by about a thousand jobs.
The biggest cutbacks came at Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc., which tied for No. 39. The chipmaker, which has struggled with a sharp drop in demand for its products, laid off some 1,000 workers at its OC chip fabrication plant and offices, a 33% reduction.
With 2,000 people, Conexant dropped from the No. 23 spot on last year’s list.
No. 38 Toshiba Corp. of Japan and No. 47 Anaheim-based CKE Restaurants Inc. were two other companies that slashed jobs to cut costs.
Toshiba cut its OC headcount by 27%, or 749 people, after it shut down laptop computer assembly in Irvine.
CKE Restaurants Inc. reduced its headcount in OC by 31% or about 700 employees as the company has sold off restaurants to pay down debt and trimmed field workers and executives.
“We had some reduction in number of people,” said David Lacey, chief financial officer at CKE Restaurants. “Its an unfortunate thing. But that is what happens when a company is going through tough times.”
Other big job cutters include: No. 11 Washington, D.C.-based Marriott Inter-national Inc., down 7% or 361 employees to 4,578 people; No. 16 Rosemead-based Edison International, down 10% or 428 employees to 3,701 OC workers; and No. 17 California State University, Fullerton, down 12% or 470 employees to 3,600 people.
The employers on the list, many headquartered outside OC, grew their collective companywide employment by 1% to 5.17 million jobs.
Among the largest 10 employers on the list, seven grew their OC workforces in the past year. Three,Boeing, Marriott and No. 9 Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp.,shrank their local headcounts.
Among the 50 biggest employers, 22 rose in the rankings, while 12 companies held steady from last year. Thirteen companies dropped from where they were a year ago.
There were three newcomers to the list, including No. 50 Costa Mesa-based Experian Inc., which made it onto the list after it added 100 people to its payroll for a total of 1,300.
“We did some upsizing and downsizing this year,” said Donald Girard, an Experian spokesperson. “We did some staff reduction in the summer, but we have hired in other departments.”
Don’t count on any more big gains at Disney next year. Spokesman Ray Gomez said the company expects its employment to hold steady as most of its expansion has ended.
