Work Just Getting Harder

If it seems these days like you’re squeezing more work into the same number of hours, you’re not alone.

A Times Orange County Poll of 600 workers found that, on average, they put in about the same long hours on the job as in the depths of the recession five years ago.

But when you ask if people are working harder, the response is typically like that expressed by Robert Remes of Dana Point, a deputy tax assessor for Los Angeles County.

“People don’t take the breaks or the lunch hours they used to,” Remes said.

“I can’t speak for everybody in Orange County, but everyone I know is getting tired of doing more and more work and getting less and less pay for it.”

The poll also found that more people work from home these days--a blurring of traditional divisions that could explain some feelings that jobs are becoming more demanding.

“You’re left between doing the dishes and sending an invoice or calling that client who’s 60 days overdue,” said Lynn Kubasek, a Santa Ana fine artist who freelances legal and medical graphics and works other jobs.

“It just seems like there’s more of everything,” said Kubasek, 39, a divorced mother of three. “A lot of blocks of shorter hours.”

But more frequently than other problems, downsizings and hiring freezes at private and government workplaces were cited as why work is harder these days.

Remes, 44, rises at 4:30 a.m. in his condominium and doesn’t get home from his job in Norwalk until 6:30 p.m. The long commute and hours take their toll, he said, and he wishes for a transfer to a closer office in Long Beach.

But what really gets him is the feeling he has been made to do more in less time to keep his job.

“There’s constant pressure every day for production,” Remes said. “When I started with the office in December 1989, there were on average 5,000 assessment appeals cases a year. Last year, we had over 105,000. And we had layoffs in 1994.”

*

The Times poll, conducted by Mark Baldassare and Associates, surveyed 600 adult jobholders from Orange County over five days in September. The margin of sampling error was 4 percentage points for the overall group, higher for subgroups.

Only three in 10 of the workers put in a traditional 40-hour week. Half work longer, and 28% toil 50 or more hours a week. Professionals work the longest hours and are the least likely to get overtime pay or compensatory time off.

Despite reporting about the same hours worked, fully half those polled said they are working harder than five years ago. And among sales and clerical workers--presumably sharply affected when the economy picks up as Orange County’s has of late--the number was about two in three.

The poll found a minor, statistically insignificant rise in those working more than 50 hours, matched by fewer working 21 to 39 hours.

That may reflect a slight recent decline in part-time workers seen nationally, said Edward Montgomery, chief economist for the U.S. Labor Department.

The responses surface against a backdrop of intense national debate over just how tough work is on Americans.

University of Maryland time-use researcher John P. Robinson, who contends work hours have gradually fallen for decades, suggests in his book “Time for Life” that people tend to exaggerate work pressures and time spent on the job.

Robinson cited a University of Michigan study that found a slight decline from 1975 to 1995 in the percentage of people who were “very tired” after work--an indication that work is no harder than before.

But Montgomery said that U.S. Labor Department figures show the average workweek and overtime hours have risen during the 1990s. He said he was surprised Orange County residents didn’t report working longer hours.

Juliet Schor, a Harvard economist who wrote the 1991 best-seller “The Overworked American,” said many factors could contribute to feelings that work is tougher these days. But the most likely explanation, she said, “is that their intensity of work is indeed going up.”

“It’s a very big number--half--saying that they are working harder,” Schor said.

“It shows that the pressures in the workplace generated by increased competition, downsizing, job insecurities, the flattening of organizations, low wages, stagnating wages--a lot of the trends that are occurring--are showing up in part in increased pressure on the people on the job.”

*

A “big counterweight” to this, Schor said, is the decision by a significant minority of workers to take easier jobs in return for more leisure and family time. That trend may be reflected in the one-sixth of Orange County jobholders who said they are working less hard now than five years ago, she said.

When workers nationally were asked in 1985 if they would like to work less, 5% said yes, Schor said. “The figure is now getting closer to 20%, and when you put the word ‘family’ in there [as an alternative to work] it jumps up to about a third.”

She said she was surprised that nearly half the dual-career families in Orange County said they would take a pay cut to spend more time with their families. “Forty-six percent! That’s an incredible thing.”

While on average the hours worked had not increased, many individual jobholders reported working harder and longer to make it these days.

*

Tim L’Ecluse of Costa Mesa works 60 to 72 hours a week in his one-person metal fabrication shop, laboring much harder than he was five years ago and still struggling to make ends meet.

The long hours are “what it takes for the business to do medium to poorly,” said L’Ecluse, 44. “Taxes have gone up, and I have to work that hard to try to keep up with the bills.”

Ellen Bravo, co-director of 9to5, National Assn. of Working Women, said she constantly hears about the time crunch.

“It’s a combination of downsizing and people at the lower end of the pay scale working harder because they need to make ends meet,” she said. “You’ll find that a lot of people are working two or three part-time jobs. They’re not considered full-time, but they’re working more than full-time.”

Kubasek, the Santa Ana artist, has lived that part of the story, working part-time at jobs from proofreader to cell-phone data gatherer to freelance supplier of courtroom graphics and surgical diagrams--all to support her career of choice in fine art.

“I would like to find a permanent job, unless I can find a way of tweaking my artwork so it supports me,” said Kubasek, who juggles her at-home time between art and trying to master new computer-design programs for her graphics freelancing.

*

Those types of competing demands may increasingly lie in store for Orange County workers if trends toward working at home continue.

A third of those in the recent poll said they are working from home more often than two years ago. Only a fifth said they are doing so less often.

But the poll also provided evidence that, so far, telecommuting may be talked about more than actually practiced.

Asked if they were able to do any work from home, 47% of jobholders said they could--a figure that jumped to 59% among professionals and managers.

But of those who could work from home, about one in eight never do so. And only one in six of those were full-time telecommuters.

Most of the poll participants believe that working from home does nothing much to advance or hold back one’s career.

Employers, however, tend to have a different perspective, said Madeline Fried of the Alliance of Work-Life Professionals, a national association based in Herndon, Va.

Sometimes employers will question whether an employee is working hard at home because bosses lose a sense of control when a worker cannot be supervised in the office, she said.

“But from what I’ve seen, it’s an issue of quality. Two hours of work at home is probably equal to 3 1/2 hours at the office,” she said. “You’re not distracted by the phone or the fax or 33 other things asking for your attention.”

Workers at home are more focused in other ways, added Lotte Bailyn, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

“People have to plan more when they work at home,” she said. “They can’t be reactive to what’s going on around them. They have to be more proactive, and that usually makes people more effective.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Marcida Dodson.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Working, Long and Hard

Half of Orange County’s workers are putting in more than the traditional 40 hours per week on the job--basically unchanged since 1990. Half say they are working harder than five years ago and four in 10 that they need extra hours to finish assigned tasks. The longer week and need for additional time is most common among professional/managerial people whereas clerical, sales and blue-collar workers are more likely to feel they are working harder:

* About how many hours do you work at your job in an average week?

*--*

Professional/ Clerical/ Blue Total manager sales collar 20 hours or less 7% 3% 11% 10% 21 to 39 hours 15 13 20 15 40 hours 28 20 37 34 41 to 49 hours 22 25 15 22 50 or more hours 28 39 17 19

*--*

* Compared to five years ago, would you say you are working harder, about the same, or working less hard today?

*--*

Professional/ Clerical/ Blue Total manager sales collar Harder 50% 45% 63% 52% About the same 32 35 24 32 Less hard 17 19 13 15 Don’t know 1 1 - 1

*--*

* In general, do you feel that you need to work extra hours in order to finish all the work you are required to do, or can you usually finish your work during your regular hours?

*--*

Full- Part- Prof./ Cler./ Blue Total time time manager sales Collar Need to work overtime 41% 45% 21% 50% 35% 32% Finish in regular hours 53 50 66 43 64 62 It depends 6 5 13 7 1 6

*--*

* Does your employer readily pay overtime or offer comp time? (employees only)

% saying yes

Total: 60%

Prof./manager: 50

Cler./sales: 64

Blue collar: 70

Half Can Work at Home

About half of all workers have the option of doing some work at home, and among those, seven in eight take advantage of the opportunity. Working at home, though, doesn’t seem to affect their career track:

* Are you able to do any of your work from home?

(% saying “yes”)

Total: 47%

Prof./manager: 59

Cler./sales: 38

Blue collar: 32

* Do you work from home all of the time, some of the time or never? (asked of those able to work at home)

*--*

Prof./ Cler./ Blue Total manager sales collar All of the time 16% 15% 25% 9% Some of the time 72 75 65 72 Never 12 10 10 19

*--*

* In general, do you think that people who work from home are considered to be on a faster career track, a slower track or the same career track as those who do their jobs at a workplace?

*--*

Prof./ Cler./ Blue Total manager sales collar Faster 18% 13% 27% 17% Slower 20 20 18 24 Same 42 46 38 40 It depends 6 7 5 5 Don’t know 14 14 12 14

*--*

Source: Times Orange County Poll