The 'Star' List Of Top 200 Employers Makes For Interesting Reading -- Between The Lines. By Emil Franzi THE ARIZONA DAILY Star's annual report on Tucson's top 200 employers, published in March, suffers from a lack of real analysis. The numbers it presents are gathered from the employers themselves, and some items--such as total payroll--are incomplete. Also, too much space is wasted on puff and hype which could be used to present more meaningful information. In addition, the Star's categorization of employers is arbitrary and requires further breakdown. For example, lumping everything from healthcare to telemarketing under "services" requires additional breakouts. And government categories need the same. But the raw data is edifying, particularly when you look at what the Star didn't bother with. Take construction as a category. Considering the massive population growth we've been achieving/suffering, combined with a good economy, this category should be bursting at the seams. Yet only six companies made the top 200 in this grouping, placing 95th, 113th, 145th, 161st, 177th, and 194th. The total number of jobs equaled about 1,650, about 80 percent higher than 1992, but still a drop in the bucket compared to others. That about equals the total number of people who work for WalMart here. Remember that the next time Growth Lobby types boast about all the jobs the construction industry supplies. Of course, there are more such jobs out there--with smaller builders and sub-contractors--but the construction industry is nonetheless an over-rated local job provider, and the massive political constituency it claims to represent has clearly atrophied. For comparison, the five biggest fast-food operations in the Top 200--Pizza Hut, Jack-in-the-Box, Domino's, eegees, and Carl's Jr.--boast over 2,000 jobs, up about 15 percent from '92, and not including the 395 people under Canchola Group. Inc., because not all of Joe Conchola's employees flip burgers at his MacDonald's franchises. Once you re-arrange the Star's categories, it becomes obvious that we've become a phone-bank town and a fast-food burg. There are at least 2,860 current jobs with either telemarketing firms or the phone service branches of major corporations. These constitute five of the Top 200 employers. None of those five firms was operating in Tucson in 1992. Today, however, they represent a whole lot more than 2,860 employees, because this category, as are others, is scored using Full Time Equivalencies (FTE), which means you add up all those no-benefit, part-timers and divide by a real job. Three more temporary employment agencies who weren't there five years ago placed into this year's Top 200, with another 1,027 FTE's. That doesn't count any of the providers of medical services who also use medical temps. Mining is up slightly, from 9,349 real jobs in 1992 to 9,970 now. And manufacturing went from 11,804 FTEs to 17,276, with most of that gain coming from 3,700 new positions at Raytheon, with about 1,400 more coming from five small manufacturers new to the list. Biggest loss recorded was about 1,000 jobs at IBM. All of which is useful and interesting, but the Star's methodology is seriously flawed when it comes to providing information about manufacturers that folded and left town in the last five years. Only new additions and the ups and downs for companies still here are included in the report. And we note that one of the companies categorized as "manufacturing" was Tucson Newspapers Inc. (TNI), with 650 current FTEs. We can't help wondering if that count includes the homeless folks standing on road medians hawking the Star and Citizen. The two separately owned dailies, which each have a stake in TNI, aren't in that count themselves--they're both below the Top 200 with 139 and 83 FTEs respectively. The Star's business staff considered as its most important finding the fact that the University of Arizona, with 10,416 jobs, has replaced the U.S. Army's Ft. Huachuca as southern Arizona's largest employer. But perhaps equally interesting is that the employer ranked 120th was TD's Topless Show Clubs, with 313 FTEs--ahead of four of our area's six top construction firms. The Star chose to place TD's under the category "trade." WHAT THE STAR saw fit to analyze consisted mainly of tub-thumping promos for the status quo. Check the headlines: "Youths can find room at the top, hotel veteran shows," or "Service sector now a big part of Tucson economy," and "Tourism a bedrock of southern Arizona economy." The tourism article claims 36,500 people worked either directly or indirectly in tourism. That number is obviously bloated--the Star counts anybody who worked for a hotel or the industries that supply them. But those who supply hotels often also supply locals. And the Star fails to mention a well-kept hotel-industry secret, namely that about 20 percent of all hotel/motel rooms are rented to locals, much of the time for reasons that don't include the continental breakfast. In fact, a major consideration in much hotel design is how to make them "user friendly" for the quickie trade. In fairness to Sara Hammond, who wrote the tourist piece, she did discuss the generally low-paying nature of most local tourism-related jobs, such as the laundry workers who clean the bed sheets. But many years ago somebody else put the impact of tourism into perspective for another place. Count Camille de Cavour, first prime minister and leader in unification of the Kingdom of Italy, wrote the following concerning the construction of railroads back in 1846: So manifold are the attractions of our country that it is difficult to guess the number of foreigners who will one day seek here a purer and cleaner air for their impaired health, quite apart from historical interest or even simple distraction from the boredom fostered by the fogs of the north. The profits which Italy will draw from its sun, its cloudless sky, its artistic riches, its historical associations, will certainly increase enormously. That will be one undeniable gain from the railways. However, we think it the least important benefit of all, despite its appeal to the general imagination. The presence of a great mass of foreigners in our midst is undoubtedly a source of profit, but it has its own inconveniences. Relations between Italians on the one hand, and rich and leisured foreigners on the other, whom the local population will exploit in order to live--this will hardly favor the development of industrious, moral habits; it may engender a spirit of guile and servility which will damage the national character. As a sense of its own dignity is of prime importance to a nation, we must not care for profits at the price of insolence and arrogance. Without wishing to stop the growing movement which urges foreigners towards Italy, we do not think it will really help us until our industrialization improves to the point where we do not depend on foreigners and so can treat them as equals. Well said, paisan; and quite applicable to Tucson today.

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