Tourism has surpassed international trade as Los Angeles County's top industry in a new ranking that reflects the growing effect of hotels, shops and restaurants as job creators in Southern California.
"This just goes to show that tourism is not just touring the stars' homes and visiting Disneyland," said economist Jack Kyser, author of the report for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
But the news also has a darker side. The new standing of tourism and hospitality as the county's No. 1 job generator comes at the expense of trade, in part because of the decline in cargo traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Trade and manufacturing generally pay higher wages than tourism.
"It's not necessarily good news," said Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. "That particular industry does not give out as much in wages and salaries as other industries."
Kyser said the ranking corrects past surveys done by the state by giving full weight to the spinoff benefits of tourism, including restaurants, retail and printing, such as travel brochures.
Using this data, tourism and hospitality were responsible for the creation of 456,000 jobs in Los Angeles County in 2007, compared with 288,000 jobs for professional and business services, and 281,000 jobs for international trade.
Kyser's approach differs from the methodology used by the state, which still ranks trade as Los Angeles County's top industry based on a more narrow interpretation of job classifications. Still, economists have long worried that the region's employment base is in danger of getting too many low-paying jobs.
"A tourist-based economy is not so ideal from that standpoint," said Ed Leamer, a UCLA professor at the Anderson School of Management. He said manufacturing jobs have long been the backbone of a stable middle-class while lower-paying hospitality jobs don't always offer the same opportunities.
Still, tourism industry leaders point to the new ranking as proof that Los Angeles County government leaders should put more resources and energy into promoting its top job creator.
"These are difficult times and budgets are tight," said Mark S. Liberman, chief executive of LA Inc., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. "But we are hopeful we will see an increase in our funding as our economy improves."
