L. A. Leads Counties in People, Jobs : Statistics Reveal Growing Importance of Valley, Downtown
Los Angeles is the nation’s most populous county and leads all others in business activity as well as in other measures of economic importance, based on information compiled by Western Economic Research Co. from the 1982 County Business Pattern Reports of the U. S. Department of Commerce.
Los Angeles County reported 3,130,772 employees, 37.6% of the 8,330,000 California total, according to Wilbur McCann, president of the Encino-based demographic firm.
Downtown Los Angeles, with 16 ZIP codes, led the list of county areas with 211,506 employees in 9,909 business establishments, followed by Long Beach’s 10 ZIP codes with 121,903 business employees in 7,281 establishments.
Excluded from the reports, compiled from information from the U. S. Census Bureau, are all levels of governmental employees, but included are most business proprietors, according to Mike Long, vice president of Western Economic Research. Local, county, state and federal government employees are a major factor in downtown Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, in Long Beach.
Beverly Hills-Century City, with 5 ZIP codes, was third in the county with 87,529 employees in 7,291 establishments, followed by Torrance, Wilshire-Olympic, Hollywood, Glendale, Industry-La Puente, Santa Monica, Burbank, Pasadena, Gardena, Van Nuys, Airport-Westchester, Vernon, El Monte, North Hollywood, West Hollywood, Santa Fe Springs and East Los Angeles.
The information reveals the growth of certain areas, such as City of Industry and the continuing importance of the Central-Southeast portion of Los Angeles County--the traditional warehouse/manufacturing area--despite well-publicized plant closings in South Gate and other communities, Long pointed out.
The Central-Southeast portion, with 67 ZIP codes, had 36,023 business establishments with a total of 795,304 employees, Long said.
“If this part of Los Angeles were a separate county, it would rank seventh in the nation in terms of business employment, just after Los Angeles County, Cook (Chicago) County, Ill., New York (Manhattan) County, Harris (Houston) County, Tex., Dallas County, Tex. and Orange County,” he said.
Not surprisingly, in view of the importance of construction and real estate in Southern California, contract construction employees in the five Los Angeles area counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino) total 196,136, or 47% of the state’s total of 418,966, Long said. Real estate employees total 72,347, or fully 52% of the state’s total of 139,800.
The San Fernando Valley, including the Saugus-Newhall-Valencia area and the Antelope Valley, is revealed by the census figures as much more than just a collection of bedroom communities: Employment totaled 520,034 in 37,790 business establishments in the area, Long said. This puts it just behind San Diego County’s 552,699 employees and well ahead of San Francisco County’s 474,081.
Long added that the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area had more than 4.4 million business employees, accounting for more than 53% of the state’s total. The San Francisco Bay 13-county area, with 2.5 million employees, accounts for 29.5% of the state’s total.
