L.A. County Apparel Industry Loses 5,000 Jobs

For the second year in a row, the Los Angeles County apparel industry lost more than 5,000 jobs in 1999 as garment assembly work continued to flee south to lower-wage factories in Mexico and as retailers stocked more of their racks with less expensive imported clothing, according to a report to be released today by local economists. By the end of last year, apparel manufacturing employment in the county, which accounted for one of every seven garment industry jobs in California, held at 101,200, a drop from 106,300 in 1998, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. The group’s chief economist, Jack Kyser, said the $10-billion local industry will probably shed more jobs this year but at a slower rate given the growing popularity of limited-run specialty lines produced at many of the county’s assembly shops. Job losses this year, he said, should exceed no more than 2,000. The state as a whole also saw garment manufacturing employment fall by nearly 6,000 jobs, the report said. One bright spot, however, was Orange County where apparel jobs grew by more than 1,000, largely due to growth in the country’s surf-wear niche, Kyser said.