Reinventing Manufacturing

Reinventing Manufacturing
California Manufacturing
Regional Clusters Analysis
Los Angeles Area
The Los Angeles Area—defined as Los Angeles,
Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties—is
California’s largest manufacturing hub. With 478,919
manufacturing jobs, the region accounted for 38.5
percent of the state’s manufacturing employment and
8.4 percent of the region’s total employment in 2014.
Much of this activity is concentrated in the corridor
between Los Angeles and Long Beach. These two cities
host two of the US’s top four ports (measured by total
foreign trade), together totaling nearly $400 billion in
2014 import and export value. 49
In terms of employment, the Los Angeles Area’s leading
manufacturing sector is Fabricated Metal Product
Manufacturing. With 60,962 jobs in 2014, this sector
constituted 12.7 percent of the region’s manufacturing
employment base. Other sectors that were not far
behind in employment size include Apparel, Textile, &
Leather Manufacturing, Computer & Electronic Product
Manufacturing, Food Manufacturing, and Transportation
Equipment Manufacturing.
The distribution of establishments across manufacturing
sectors in the Los Angeles Area has remained
fairly stable since 1990. Large declines took place
between 1990 and 2014 in Furniture & Related Product
Manufacturing—down 49.1 percent, Printing &
Related Support Activities—down 48.3 percent, and
Transportation Equipment Manufacturing (principally
aerospace)—down 31.7 percent. On the opposite
end of the spectrum during the same period, the
number of establishments in Beverage Manufacturing
and Food Manufacturing increased by 62.4 and
3.7 percent respectively.
In the 2010–2014 time period, the Los Angeles Area
manufacturing sector with the fastest growing employment
was Beverage Manufacturing (+17.1 percent).
Additional sectors that have led job growth since 2010
include Miscellaneous Manufacturing (+15.6 percent),
Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing (+13.5 percent),
and Furniture & Related Product Manufacturing
(+10.0 percent). However, over the long term (1990–
2014) and reflective of nationwide trends, each of those
three additional sectors experienced overall job losses
in the Los Angeles Area, so the jobs added since 2010
represent a start at recovery and not a net gain.
In contrast, Beverage Manufacturing had 1.9 percent
more employment in 2014 than in 1990, and Pharmaceutical
& Medicine Manufacturing had 89.3 percent
more jobs in 2014 than in 1990, having experienced job
growth throughout the 1990–2014 period rather than a
surge in growth since 2010.
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