Entertainment Industry ‘Changed Once in a Generation’ As LAs, Film and TV Employment Drops 8% During Strikes, Study Finds

During the 2023 Hollywood strikes, the Los Angeles region’s share of national Film and TV employment fell to 27%, compared to 35% just a year earlier. The statistics are from a new study, “Die Another Day,” Part 2 of the Otis College Report on the Creative Economy. It also examines the evolution of the entertainment workforce, which has become less dependent on the traditional film and TV business and more white-collar and racially diverse in the broadcast age.

Part 1 of the study conducted by Westwood Economics and Planning Associates, which also used a movie title for its name, “The Day After Tomorrow,” reported a 17% drop in employment in the entertainment industry from April to October 2023 as a result of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA attacks, accompanied by the continued contraction of post-Peak TV.

The following report (you can read it in full here) focuses on the sea changes in the makeup of the entertainment industry, with the film and television industry making up 52% ​​of the Greater Los Angeles County Entertainment Industry, up from 64% in 2013.

As a result, employment is down 9.1% (12,900 jobs) from 2013 to 2024 for the traditional entertainment industries of Film and TV, Sound, Print Media and Broadcasting.

Meanwhile, aspects of the entertainment industry that gained 53% in employment, or 28,000 jobs, over the same period in the fields include Software Publishers, Broadcast Media, Performing Arts, Spectator Sports and Related Industries, and Independent Artists.

As the entertainment industry becomes increasingly technological, the share of college-educated workers it employs has grown from 46% in 2000 to 68% in 2022. The workforce has also become more racially diverse. For the first time, in 2022, the majority of employees at LA Greater Entertainment were non-white, according to the report.

“Los Angeles is still the pinnacle of the entertainment industry, but the industry itself is undergoing once-in-a-generation changes,” said Dr. Patrick Adler, principal at Westwood Economics and Planning Associates and assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. “It’s less dependent on film and television studios, more oriented towards creating online content, live events and games, and also much more technical and managerial than ever. What it means to work in Hollywood is completely different today than it was even ten years ago.”