Friday, March 22, 2013

Los Angeles County Loses over 80,000 Jobs in Just One Month!

According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, not only does California have the highest unemployment rate in the country at 9.8% (compared to the national average of 7.9%) , but LA County even exceeds that with its unemployment rate increasing to 10.4% - which is more then one out of ten of the people in the work force unable to find a job, not counting those who have given up even looking..

Even worse, the City of Los Angeles tops the rest of the county with its unemployment rate jumping from 11.6% to 12.1% compared to the 7.9%  national rate.  That's almost one out of eight people in the City of LA - not counting those have have given up even looking for work.

So even though a couple local pundits still try to claim Los Angeles has nothing to worry about from New York and other states using subsidies to take the film and TV industry from LA and California - more jobs were lost in the entertainment industry than in any other job category (other then the post-Christmas drop in temporary retail) during the month of January. Yes, fourteen thousand entertainment industry jobs vanished in just one month.

And now, film and TV are the fastest declining businesses in all of LA Country. And that's not - of course - counting the TONIGHT SHOW which is now about to move back to New York - and join much of the TV industry that has already relocated there.

Here is the opening of the Los Angeles Business Journal article, and the link to read the rest of  it:

Job Losses Hit L.A.

By HOWARD FINEOriginally published March 22, 2013 at 1:27 p.m., updated March 22, 2013 at 9:59 a.m.
L.A. County’s economy took a big hit in January as more than 81,000 payroll jobs were lost and the unemployment rate edged up to 10.4 percent, according to revised state figures released Friday.
Virtually every sector got hit with job losses after the federal government finished its annual revision of employer payroll data. The biggest drop was in retail trade, which saw nearly 20,000 jobs disappear from December to January, in part because of layoffs after the holiday shopping season.
Other sectors taking big hits were motion picture and sound recording (down 14,000 jobs), professional and business services (down 12,500 jobs) and leisure and hospitality (10,000 jobs). All of these sectors consistently posted gains during the past year; with this data revision, some of those gains were likely illusory.
The only sector to post a significant gain was construction, as 800 more people filled payrolls in January.
L.A. County suffered disproportionately in January; statewide, 1,700 jobs were added to payrolls, meaning other parts of the state saw significant job growth.
The rest of the story and the unemployment rate of the City of Los Angeles is right here.

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