L.A. jobs picture brightens, led by entertainment

This is often a wackadoodle time of year for the state bean counters who assemble the employment stats, so the new numbers for February aren't especially surprising. L.A.'s jobless rate fell to 10.3 percent from 10.4 percent a month earlier, but the bigger news was the addition of 39,000 payroll jobs. That makes up almost half the positions that were lost in January. Such variations are hard to explain, other than to note that annual adjustments to the employment numbers are made at the beginning of the year and they sometimes can play havoc with monthly figures. Another factor is the volatility of certain industries. Movie and television employment, for example, added 15,700 jobs in February (the most of any sector) after losing 14,000 positions in January. Entertainment employment in L.A. County totaled 122,700 last month, which is up 6.5 percent from a year earlier. Going back many years, payroll levels generally have ranged from 110,000 to 135,000 (December was a bit over the range and January was a bit under). These numbers do not include freelance employment, which in show business is a big component. Here's the deal: the Hollywood jobs picture might bounce around from month to month, but the overall trend line looks solid, especially if you throw in ancillary production like advertising and Web-related content. Here's the EDD release.