From Silicon Valley to Hollywood, why California's job market is taking a hit
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California is among the world’s largest economies, but the engines that drive it haven’t been firing on all cylinders.The state has been buffeted by a litany of layoffs this year from Hollywood to Silicon Valley — and beyond.Economists cite several explanations, including contraction in the entertainment industry, displacements caused by artificial intelligence and overall uncertainty in the national economy.
Business The tech industry, once seen as a relatively stable place to grow a career, continues to be hit by job cuts in 2025.Tech companies including Meta, Block, Autodesk and others are among businesses that have slashed their workforce.This year, thousands of workers at Amazon, Intel, Salesforce, Meta, Paramount, Warner Bros.
and Walt Disney Co.have lost their jobs.
Even Apple just announced a rare round of cuts.Seemingly no corner of entertainment and tech has been immune from the cost-cutting that has put workers on edge.“People are hunkering down because they think a storm is coming,” UC Berkeley labor economist Jesse Rothstein said.Through October there were 158,734 layoffs announced in California, compared with 136,661 for the same period last year.
That was the most of any state, lagging behind only Washington, D.C., which has been hit hard by federal downsizing, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.Hollywood Inc.
Hollywood’s workers have endured the pandemic, strikes and production slowdowns in L.A.Now they’re up against an onslaught of layoffs throughout the industry.Nationwide, the layoffs have topped 1 million so far for the year, the most since the pandemic, according to Challenger.As in the late 1990s, there’s a disruptive technology at play again — artificial intelligence, which is fueling a Silicon Valley investment boom reminiscent of the build-up to the last tech bust.AI has been cited in more than 48,0...