Los Angeles Trendlines

Tuesday, November 3, 2026·Charts every weekday

Skip to main content

Los Angeles-metro manufacturing jobs, September 2026

economy
employment
Published

October 21, 2026

Manufacturing payroll employment in the Los Angeles metro, thousands of jobs, NSA, 1990 to September 2026: from 1059k to a peak of 1072k in March 1990, now 445k.

Manufacturing as a percent of all Los Angeles-metro payroll jobs, NSA, 1990 to September 2026: from 19.8% to 7.1%, with a high of 19.8% in February 1990.

Los Angeles-metro manufacturers employed 444,800 people in September 2026, down 1.2% from a year earlier — 7.1% of all payroll jobs in the metro. The sector peaked at 1,071,500 jobs in March 1990 and has shed roughly 58% of that since.

The second chart is the share: it went from 19.8% in January 1990 to 7.1% now.

Numerator and denominator of the share come from the same BLS release for the same metro, so it stays consistent when the levels are revised; it is computed at read time, never stored.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, State & Area Employment, manufacturing and total nonfarm payrolls, Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim MSA, not seasonally adjusted, via FRED. The share is derived at read time. Auto-generated each build.