Fresh Profile: Jobs in California

Published on 2008-05-28

As of April 2008, California accounted for about 12% of the U.S. workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California also has the largest and most diverse economy of any state in the nation, and its workers - all 18,384,000 of them - are distributed amongst an impressive variety of traditional and cutting-edge industries. Agriculture, entertainment, information technology, manufacturing, aerospace, retail and wholesale, international trade, and tourism are just a few of the major sources of jobs in California.

Los Angeles, the state's largest city and America's second largest, is known as the entertainment capital of the world, but entertainment jobs are far from being its primary contribution to California's employment outlook. Los Angeles is the country's principal center for manufacturing and shipping, and the L.A. metro area is home to such Fortune 500 companies as Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, and Health Net. Fashion, finance, aerospace, and healthcare are important industries for the creation of jobs in Los Angeles.

Tourism, defense, manufacturing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications are leading sectors for San Diego jobs. California's second largest city hosts a major port, defense contractors such as General Atomics and Science Applications International Corporation, and one of the nation's foremost biotech clusters. San Diego is a leading U.S. city for cruise ship jobs, and as the home of Qualcomm Incorporated, it is also a notable source of wireless jobs.

Finance, banking, tourism and engineering are some of the most important industries for the creation of San Francisco jobs. High-tech and professional services are well represented in the San Francisco economy, though unfortunately, the influx of high-income jobs has raised the cost of living in the city beyond the reach of many of the artists and writers who would traditionally have lived there. However, San Francisco's massive tourism industry ($7.76 billion in 2006) provides a reliable outside source of income, not to mention thousands of tourism jobs in retail, hospitality and related service sectors.

Elsewhere in the state, San Jose and Silicon Valley are famous worldwide as California's number one location for information technology jobs. State government is the leading employer in Sacramento, the state capital. Fresno, Oakland, Santa Ana and Bakersfield are all high on the list of California's most populous cities.

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