Apparel Manufacturing Jobs Drop
Employment fell 5.2 percent in California’s apparel/textile sector in 2008, according to a new report by Evanston, Ill.–based MNI.
The drop was blamed on weakened demand across the board. The employee base in the rubber/plastics sector was down 6.7 percent, followed by stone/clay/glass, down 6.1 percent; printing/publishing, down 6 percent; textiles/apparel, down 5.2 percent; paper/allied product, down 5 percent; transportation, down 2.5 percent; chemicals, down 2.5 percent; and fabricated metal, down 2.3 percent.
The state’s 26,376 manufacturers employed 1.6 million people in 2008.
Southern California accounts for 63 percent of the state’s industrial employment, with 1,020,477 jobs, down 30,207 (2.9 percent) over the year. Northern California accounts for 589,790 of the state’s industrial jobs, down 11,628 jobs (1.9 percent) over the past 12 months.
MNI’s city data shows that Los Angeles’ national ranking slipped from the fourth-largest city in the United States by industrial employment to fifth, following a loss of 7,173 manufacturing jobs in 2008. Los Angeles currently accounts for 90,671 industrial jobs. —Robert McAllister
