17% of L.A. Entertainment Workers Lost Jobs During Strikes, New Study Finds

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer It’s hard to measure the full impact of the Hollywood strikes — mainly because the TV and film industry will be facing the ripple effects for years to come — but a new study has revealed one significant immediate hit: 17% of Los Angeles-based showbiz workers lost their jobs during the work stoppages.

According to the Otis College of Art and Design’s study, the first released under the college’s ongoing Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, following the WGA (which ran May 2-Sept.

27) and SAG-AFTRA strikes (July 14-Nov. 9), 24,799 entertainment industry employees in Los Angeles were let go, or more than 1.5 in every 10 workers.

While actors and writers were the workers that saw the “most rapid declines” during the April-October period period measured, other heavily affected roles included camera operators and editors, and “other media occupations,” which the study classifies as “a group that includes broadcast, sound and lighting technicians.” The study notes that the writers and actors strikes of 2023 should be “understood as part of a longer-term decline in Hollywood employment,” including the decline of Peak TV, and states that film and TV industry’s employment has shrunk by 26% since the post-pandemic high point in August 2022.