The lately launched Otis College Report on the Creative Economy for 2024 reaffirms how necessary the “inventive economic system” is to California, the place it’s liable for greater than 760,000 jobs, accounting for one in 5 inventive jobs within the US. The annual report seems to be on the prior 12 months in what’s broadly outlined because the inventive economic system—a class that features fields like movie and tv, toy design, music, vogue, structure, theatre, dance, artwork faculties, museums and galleries.
“California continues to be the nationwide chief with respect to the inventive economic 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.
Based on the report, in Los Angeles alone the movie, tv and sound sector added round 15,000 jobs final 12 months—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 general contraction of 0.9% within the inventive economic system. (Osman identified that the determine is near the nationwide determine of a 0.8% contraction.)
Whereas the fantastic 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 fantastic arts proceed to shine as California stays a fantastic arts schooling powerhouse,” Osman noticed as considered one of his 5 key findings. He later instructed The Artwork Newspaper that he credit this achievement to the power and recognition of the various artwork faculties in Southern California. Based on the report, California confers extra fantastic arts levels than another state within the US. (California can be probably the most populous state within the nation.)
Previously 5 years, 5,589 jobs have been added at fantastic arts faculties, with a strong 1,208 jobs added in 2024 alone. Throughout the identical interval, museums noticed an general drop of 37 jobs however an addition of 279 final 12 months—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 typically seems to have a growth in modern artwork gross sales and sellers, occasions like Frieze Los Angeles and the Felix Art Fair don’t essentially create full-time jobs. Smaller galleries and people with headquarters elsewhere—akin to Gavlak, based mostly in Palm Seaside, 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 12 months, it was extensively reported that individuals have been transferring out of Los Angeles—this although these within the inventive economic system are mentioned to be making a median of $191,000 per 12 months, in response to the Otis Faculty report. After all, the excessive common is enormously skewed by these incomes megabucks on the prime.
