More working in arts fields in 2013
But despite job gains, L.A. County’s creative sector is still 10% below 2008 level, Otis Report finds.
Employment in Los Angeles County’s creative industries rose by 6,000 jobs in 2013 after more modest gains the two previous years, according to the latest annual Otis Report on the Creative Economy.
But with 355,600 workers on payrolls, the county’s creative sector remained 37,600 jobs below the 2008 level — a winnowing of about 10% of the creative workforce since the Great Recession.
The report, released Wednesday, is sponsored by Otis College of Art and Design in L.A. and compiled by economists from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. who use government data from federal and state agencies.
The pinnacle of wonkery in the Southern California arts scene, the Otis Report provides a potential tool for advocates pushing for better funding of the arts, or for legislation that would benefit the entertainment industry or other creative pursuits.
The report compiled figures on jobs and pay from 2013 for a dozen creative industries that include not just arts and entertainment but also advertising, publishing and three manufacturing and product sales fields: fashion, furniture and toys. Thus defined, creative sector payrolls accounted for 406,900 jobs in L.A. and Orange counties in 2013 — 12.5% of the region’s economy as a whole.
Orange County, a far different landscape than L.A. because it isn’t a force in the entertainment or manufacturing industries, saw a loss of 400 creative-sector jobs in 2013, down to 51,300.
The decline for 2013 ran counter to overall job growth of 2.5% in Orange County. In L.A., a 1.7% employment increase in the creative industries matched job growth in the county economy as a whole in 2013.
The report’s authors forecast better things ahead — a combined gain to about 415,000 creative jobs in the two counties between 2013 and 2018 that would, nevertheless, leave creative payrolls nearly 40,000 jobs below 2008 levels.
Of the 58 categories of work Otis has identified across 12 creative industries, only a dozen showed any growth in L.A. between 2008 and 2013.
The industries covered in the report range from industrial design, with 400 payroll employees in L.A., to the mammoth movie industry, which listed 101,800 people on its payrolls in 2013.
Film jobs were down about 8% from 2008, when the industry had 110,400 workers on payrolls. But there was a glimmer of recovery in 2013, with a gain of 1,300 jobs.
Film, television, radio and the recording industry — the main components of the entertainment industry, as defined in the Otis Report — lost a combined 10,400 jobs from 2008 to 2013, with the movies down 8,600 workers.
Broadcast TV is the only entertainment category that has added workers in L.A. since 2008. It accounted for 11,400 jobs in 2013, up about 24% over the five years — a gain of 2,200 jobs.
Jobs in the performing arts — L.A. County companies devoted to live theater, dance, music and other performance — declined 12% between 2008 and 2013 — a loss of 700 jobs that winnowed employment to 5,100. Museums added 100 jobs over the same period, employing 3,900 people in 2013.
More Angelenos have been describing themselves to the IRS as “independent artists, writers and performers” — a broad category of freelancers that can include art conservators, costume designers, fashion models and journalists as well as movie stars, film directors and visual artists. There were 11,300 of these independent creators in L.A. in 2013, up about 11% from 2008.
Newspapers, magazines and book publishers shed 37% of their L.A. County workforce between 2008 and 2013, a loss of 4,200 jobs that left the sector with 7,200 employees in 2013.
Out of 70 “creative occupations” in L.A. County, top median earnings were for advertising and promotions managers ($133,320), art directors ($130,700), marketing managers ($129,190), software designers ($114,980) and producers/directors ($102,860).
Teaching architecture pays a median of $66,590 in L.A. County and $124,830 in O.C. Kimberly Ritter-Martinez, an economist on the team that wrote the Otis Report, said that L.A. has far more colleges and vocational schools than O.C. and that they probably employ a larger share of part-time faculty whose earnings would skew the median wage downward.
Other median earnings for L.A. County: writers and authors, $95,810; film and video editors, $85,800; architects, $81,380; librarians, $71,350; curators, $65,350; music directors and composers, $63,560; fine artists, including sculptors and painters, $58,370; graphic designers, $52,440; camera operators in film and TV, $49,290; reporters, $37,490.
Film projectionists are the creative sector’s worstpaid workers, at $21,660. No earnings were available for actors, dancers, choreographers or musicians.
Public television station KCET has scheduled an hourlong broadcast about the Otis Report at 8 p.m. March 24.