Suppling manufacturing partners in Los Angeles
Do you associate manufacturing in Los Angeles? Probably not, Los Angeles comes to mind when you think of film and entertainment, just look at the featured image above. The city of LA has been the capital of the global film industry for the past century. The storytelling power of Hollywood is unmatched, helping to push US culture to every part of the world, would the world be even aware of McDonalds or Coke and Pepsi without people seeing the brands in movies and TV?
What people don’t seem to realize is that LA has a diverse economy far beyond the scope of the movies and Hollywood. Los Angeles has rapidly emerged as an important hub of technology and manufacturing companies. When you consider that the greater Los Angeles area is close to breaking the 20 million population mark it is easy to see that the economy is heavily reliant on the manufacturing industry.
Los Angeles beats out New York
LA county even stands 1st of the list of counties with the highest GDP, beating out even New York County (see graph below). Add to this the fact that the Greater Los Angeles economy is worth an astounding $1.3 TRILLION and you can see how Los Angeles is an important pillar of the US economy. A large contributor to this is manufacturing in Los Angeles.
The economy of Los Angeles has diversified
Los Angeles’s economy has gone through a period which has seen its growth in just the last 5 years has increased by 11.8%, to put that into context; New York has seen a growth of 4.1% in the same period of time, that’s almost 3 times as much. The Per Capita income has grown by a staggering 19% in that same time period as well.
The largest driver of this growth has been the expansion of the local tech and manufacturing sectors. The city emerged as a tech hub in the early 2000s, initially three industries dominated the growth; digital media, consumer and tech. Household names such as Wag!, Nativo, LeafGroup, GumGum, Snapchat, Tinder and The Honest companies are just some of the successes of that early period of growth.
The majority of people’s perception of manufacturing in Los Angeles is dominated by these three categories above. But it must be remembered that this period of initial growth was around 10-15 years ago. In the past few years, the industrial sector for the city has seen the growth of a new set of industries: manufacturing, logistics, fabricated metal products, and mobility.
New growth in manufacturing
The past 5 years have seen huge growth in startups in LA. While this is also true for many US cities it is important to realize that LA has the largest manufacturing workforce of any city in the United States. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the city has become a manufacturing hub.
As of now, manufacturing in Los Angeles employs around 340,000 people. This is responsible for approximately $25 billion in annual wages. In comparison, the entertainment industry in LA employs a total of 111,000 people with annual wages of $14 billion.
That’s 3 times the people employed by Hollywood and nearly double the wages! These wages are being paid by the new unicorn companies such as HyperLoop, SpaceX and the manufacturing giants such as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the following are the key drivers in the growth.
- Rocketdyne
- Northrop Grumman
- California Shipbuilding Corporation
- Panavision
- Relativity Space
- Faraday Future
- Space Vector Corporation
- Wright Electric
A global manufacturing hub
The countries around the Pacific coast make up a very large chunk of global trade; the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia are massive economies. Los Angeles is ideally placed on the Pacific coast. One benefit is the accessibility to international trade through the two largest seaports in the western hemisphere; LA Port and Long Beach Port. Together, these ports handle 40 percent of U.S. inbound containerized freight, a mind-bending 18 million cargo containers pass through both ports annually. Just like these ports, LAX is also a world hub airport that flies internationally to 78 destinations in 41 different countries.
LA’s logistics advantage has led to an explosion of startups based in LA focused on logistics including the likes of Shiphawk, CargoMatic, ServiceTitan, NextTrucking, Dray Alliance and others. With an eye towards the future, the Techstars StarBurst Space Accelerator recently set up shop in LA to serve as a starting point for space companies.
To our customers in Los Angeles
There are many ways people do business with Wisconsin Metal Tech. Some rely on us solely for rod and bar supply. Others save time with value-added secondary services like sawing, heat treating, plating or grinding. A fast-growing part of our business is project management and single-source manufacturing of precision machined metal parts.
No matter how you choose to work with us, we pride ourselves in finding ways to improve your bottom line. We can save you time and money. With better ways to purchase materials, to improving part design or processes.
Wisconsin Metal Tech is there for our manufacturing partners in Los Angeles. We the ability to provide the highest quality manufacturing, specializing in complex, hard to machine parts. This is backed up by our time tested, reliable logistics for your single-source project management. We oversee and troubleshoot all aspects of your part or assembly. This includes drawings and estimates, cost/manufacturing improvements, material purchase, machining and production, vendor coordination, inventory programs, quality documentation and meeting exacting delivery schedules.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can help.
