In recent months, as California legislators have worked to
lure back its scattered entertainment industry, jobs in the sector in Los
Angeles County have been approaching prerecession levels, according to an
analysis by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. This October saw
the highest local monthly employment in the motion-picture and sound-recording
industries—134,900—of any October in 10 years. And so far in 2014, average
monthly employment in the entertainment industries here is higher than it was
on average in 2008.
Despite many in the industry saying future prospects in this
region are grim, economist Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics LLC says
“entertainment is so alive and well in this state.” According to Film L.A.
Inc., the city’s permitting office, on-location production is up locally this
year in film, television and other categories, including music videos and
student film projects.
Still, local feature-film production remains almost a third
below the 10-year peak it reached in 2005. And television production, which was
similarly hard-hit by the recession, has faced a rocky recovery—with the growth
driven largely by reality programs—and remains below its 2007 high.
The entertainment industry, once rooted in Hollywood, has
for more than 10 years fled in search of tax breaks and incentives that can
trim millions of dollars from a production’s cost. Such enticements, which have
faced political opposition in some state legislatures, have boosted union rolls
and moved big-budget features and television shows to locales such as Georgia,
Louisiana and Canada.
California recently made its biggest move yet to fight back
against the industry’s migration, with Gov. Jerry Brown signing a bill in
September to nearly triple the amount of money allocated for the state’s
entertainment tax-credit program to $330 million a year for the next five
years. The legislation, which will go into effect in 2015, was designed with
the aim of attracting big-budget features and television series that create
longer-term, better-paying jobs.
The recovery in Los Angeles, though, is only part of the
story. So far this year, employment in the sector nationally has fallen by an
average of 11% year over year each month. In October, motion picture and sound
recording accounted for 306,400 jobs, down from 382,100 in October 2004.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America, the
industry contributed $120 billion in sales to the overall economy in 2012.
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