Why Hollywood jobs haven’t come back, in three charts

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Three charts show why Hollywood jobs haven’t come back

Hollywood is in trouble. As if the pandemic, streaming wars and twin strikes weren’t enough to shake the industry’s finances, new box office data paint an even grimmer picture.

First-quarter box office figures still lag behind pre-pandemic levels while streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu and internet video platforms including YouTube and TikTok have become more popular than ever. New technologies are emerging. And the number of low-cost production sites outside of L.A. is growing.

“The very basis of what made Hollywood universally popular in the 20th century was the theatrical feature film. That seems to be ending now,” Jonathan Kuntz, a film historian at UCLA, told my colleagues Don Lee and Samantha Masunaga. “It seems the audience has moved on.”

Producers, distributors, design studios, prop manufacturers, agencies, caterers and more are all feeling the crunch.

Let’s take a look at Don and Samantha’s reporting on the factors at play.

Employment in L.A. County’s entertainment industry has reached its lowest level in more than three decades, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Californians now make up less than 30% of the country’s entertainment industry workers, down from 40% ten years ago.

It’s one of the reasons why California has the highest unemployment rate in the country.

Even before the strikes, studios had cut back on staff and new shows in order to make up for financial losses incurred during the streaming wars.

In the L.A. area, production has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, it even lags behind last year. Film and TV production has dropped by about 7% globally in the first quarter of 2024 in comparison with the same period last year, according to tracking company ProdPro.

Even if production does make a comeback, it might not be in L.A. More and more film and TV production has moved to cities outside of California, including Atlanta and Vancouver, where costs are cheaper.

But it’s not just that production jobs haven’t returned to SoCal. Californians are losing out on out-of-state work, too.

In the past, film workers from Southern California would often supplement and lead projects in shooting locations outside L.A., said Kevin Klowden, an economics expert at the Milken Institute.

But, “if the productions are cut back, and budgets are trimmed,” said Klowden, “a major place to see those cuts is in not employing the workers from out of state who need their travel costs covered.”

Experts worry that film industry workers will leave Los Angeles or quit altogether.

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And finally … from our archives

On June 13, 2023, Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to be charged with federal crimes as he was arraigned in a Miami courtroom. As Times reporters Sarah D. Wire and Summer Lin reported, he pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts in a federal classified documents case.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

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