California Apparel News

With housing prices showing healthy gains and the stock market posting healthy results, consumers are feeling more confident than last year.

As a result, retail sales in Los Angeles County should see a 3.1 percent bump this year as consumers start to loosen their purse strings and credit gets a little easier to obtain. Next year, the retail environment will be even better, according to the 2013–2014 Mid-Year Economic Forecast and Industry Outlook released by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. on July 17.

Orange County, whose economy is growing faster than most counties in the state, will see a 3.3 percent rise in retail sales. “A big part of that gain is going to be from the sale of cars and other durable goods as people try to catch up from several years of tightening their belts,” said Robert Kleinhenz, the LAEDC’s chief economist. “With home purchases up, that will contribute to spending on furniture and home appliances as well as home improvement items.”

Clothing stores in Los Angeles and across the country are facing increased competition from websites that offer a range of merchandise that can be bought by clicking on a computer mouse. “On a year-to-date basis, clothing and clothing accessory stores [in Los Angeles County] have seen their employment flat,” Kleinhenz observed.

Still, shoppers are feeling more confident about their financial well-being with the stock market trending upward and home prices regaining much of the value lost since 2007. In Los Angeles County, home prices in June were up more than 30 percent from the year-ago period.

While more shoppers are expected at local stores, manufacturing in Southern California is having a tougher time. Southern California employs more people in manufacturing than any other area of the country, but job growth is shrinking as companies shift their production to other countries with cheaper labor and become more efficient with technology.

According to the economic report, manufacturing jobs in the six counties that make up Southern California (Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego) will dip 0.4 percent this year compared to last year.

Manufacturing jobs in the apparel and textile industries continue to shrink. As of May, apparel manufacturing in Los Angeles County employed 44,000 workers compared to 46,300 in May 2012, and textile mills in May had 6,300 workers compared to 6,700 last year.

On the bright side, employment in the apparel and textile wholesale trade grew to 22,700 jobs in May 2013, a slight uptick from 22,100 a year ago.

“Apparel manufacturing remains one of the most labor-intensive industries in the world, which gives countries with lower wages/cost of living a competitive edge,” the report says. The report notes that unless there are some technological innovations that reduce apparel manufacturing costs, employment will slowly shrink. “Over the near-term future, local apparel manufacturing employment will continue the downward trend that began in the late 1990s,” the report states.