Happily, the animation industry (so far) has held its own in the global financial meltdown. Especially when you consider this:
Location filming for movies and TV commercials on the streets of Los Angeles, once as prevalent as the corner taco truck, is rapidly fading to black. Double whammies of the recession and out-of-state economic incentives for producers have caused on-location film shoots in the Los Angeles area to fall to their lowest levels on record.
Los Angeles' entertainment industry lost more than 22,000 jobs in January [2009], more than any other sector, according to the California Employment Development Department -- roughly 10% of the available workforce. The entertainment industry employs more than 200,000 people and pumps $20 billion to $30 billion into the local economy, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. estimates.
Since that dark time twelve months ago, the business has bounced back a bit, aided by new state tax incentives. But I can't think of any part of the movie business that isn't aggressively cost-cutting, even as it hires more workers ...
But what of the future?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects where employment in different job sectors will be eight years from now (2018), and it turns out the teevee and movie industry will see a 14.1% improvement from 362,000 to 413,000 jobs.
Predicting business trajectories is a tricky business, but the bureau does its level best. According to their slide rule brigades, we'll have an overall increase of 14.5 million job from 2008 to 2018. (We're going to be climbing out of a deep hole, since job losses have been happening since December 2007.)
Click here for the actual interactive chart pictured above.
Other areas of employment in which some of us might be working: broadcasting will grow 7.4%, from 316,000 to 340,000. And software publishing will increase by a robust 30%, going from 264,000 to 343,000.
(Word to the wise, don't dive into the manufacturing sector.)
Posts
5 comments:
Reading the voluminous comments of some of the employment related posts below, I must say, I found it staggering to hear so many trade unionists speak like Social Darwinists. Organized labor dribbles the patter of bourgeois idealism!?
Art Babbit where are you?!
Exactly what is surprising. Seriously. Steve has posted time and time again that although TAG's ranks have grown, job security has plummeted. He even posts graphs about it. Social Darwinism is the reality in labor. How else do expect employees to be in such an environment? What we have is a failure of our collective bargaining agreement in an environment that actually should bear better fruit BECAUSE animation is probably the single bright spot in Hollywood - animation and live action that uses animation heavily. TAG is weak, and for a long laundry list of sad reasons. We don't even have animation directors in our ranks. ?!?!?! That's just the facts. So Social Darwinism reigns.
Regarding the last post...How are Animation Directors NOT in The Animation Guild? Am I missing something?
Yeah, can some please clarify
b/c that deal was made with the devil, disney, years ago, and it has remained that way since. the highest profile professionals of the animation craft are corporate employees, across the board. tom sito tried to change that to no avail. wga can claim enormous high profile talent among their ranks, as can sag. well, at least we rhyme with the latter. we got that changed. albeit only recently.
Post a Comment