THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WHERE THE JOBS ARE : BEARINGS : Drugs Are No Sweat, But Health Care. . .

Corporate concern about drug abuse, long a major management bugaboo, appears to be waning.

For three years in a row, executives polled by the management law firm Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman called substance abuse the most critical labor and employment issue facing the nation.

But in the firm’s latest survey, substance abuse slipped to the fifth most critical concern. The reason, contends Jackson Lewis partner Frank Cronin, is that corporate drug testing programs and policies against drug abuse are curbing the problem in the workplace.

So what are executives fretting about instead? The 741 executives polled listed employee benefits first, followed by AIDS, job security, accommodating people with disabilities and substance abuse.

The focus on benefits and AIDS both reflect concerns about the availability and cost of health care, said Cronin, the head of Jackson Lewis’ Los Angeles office.

“If you’re spending $300,000 on one employee’s health problem, then everyone else covered by a company’s plan will have increased costs the next year,” he said.

Although sexual harassment didn’t land on the top five list, concern about that issue skyrocketed over the past year, the survey found. Still, 78% of those surveyed said they hadn’t experienced an increase in sexual harassment allegations over the past year.