The not too long ago launched Otis Faculty Report on the Inventive Economic system for 2024 reaffirms how necessary the “inventive financial system” is to California, the place it’s chargeable for greater than 760,000 jobs, accounting for one in 5 inventive jobs within the US. The annual report seems on the prior yr in what’s broadly outlined because the inventive financial system—a class that features fields like movie and tv, toy design, music, style, structure, theatre, dance, artwork colleges, museums and galleries.
“California continues to be the nationwide chief with respect to the inventive financial system,” mentioned Taner Osman, a founding father of Westwood Economics and Planning Associates (which produces the report for Otis Faculty of Artwork and Design), on the report’s unveiling final week in Santa Monica.
In response to the report, in Los Angeles alone the movie, tv and sound sector added round 15,000 jobs final yr—whereas nonetheless recovering from two main union strikes in 2023. Nonetheless, different sectors misplaced jobs, partly as a result of persevering with decline in manufacturing and shifts in market wants, producing an total contraction of 0.9% within the inventive financial system. (Osman identified that the determine is near the nationwide determine of a 0.8% contraction.)
Whereas the nice arts—which the report defines as all visible and performing arts—make up a small a part of the report, it’s one which has been rising. “The nice arts proceed to shine as California stays a nice arts training powerhouse,” Osman noticed as one among his 5 key findings. He later advised The Artwork Newspaper that he credit this achievement to the power and recognition of the numerous artwork schools in Southern California. In response to the report, California confers extra nice arts levels than another state within the US. (California can be essentially the most populous state within the nation.)
Prior to now 5 years, 5,589 jobs had been added at nice arts colleges, with a strong 1,208 jobs added in 2024 alone. Throughout the identical interval, museums noticed an total drop of 37 jobs however an addition of 279 final yr—a major rebound from the layoffs and furloughs of the Covid-19 years. Sadly, the variety of individuals working as “artwork sellers” continues to say no, with 273 jobs misplaced over the five-year interval and 115 in 2024.
Whereas Los Angeles usually seems to have a increase in modern artwork gross sales and sellers, occasions like Frieze Los Angeles and the Felix Artwork Truthful don’t essentially create full-time jobs. Smaller galleries and people with headquarters elsewhere—resembling Gavlak, based mostly in Palm Seashore, Florida—have quietly closed their Los Angeles branches.
All of the whereas, as mentioned in a panel dialogue after the formal presentation in Santa Monica, the worth of actual property in Los Angeles has been on the rise, creating difficulties for people in addition to for companies and nonprofits. Final yr, it was extensively reported that individuals had been shifting out of Los Angeles—this although these within the inventive financial system are mentioned to be making a mean of $191,000 per yr, in line with the Otis Faculty report. In fact, the excessive common is vastly skewed by these incomes megabucks on the high.
