• More than half of Los Angeles workers are now unemployed, according to a national survey.
  • Research from the USC Downside Center for Economic and Social Research found that only 45% of LA residents are still employed — down 16% since mid-March.
  • This means an estimated 1.3 million Angelenos have lost their jobs during the coronavirus crisis.
  • More than half of the population of Los Angeles are now unemployed, according to a national survey from the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.Researchers found that only 45% of LA workers are still employed, compared with 61% in mid-March as 1.3 million people have lost their jobs during the coronavirus crisis.

    “In LA, there was a certain level of insecurity to begin with, and it has increased a little bit more than it has in the national average,” USC’s Jill Darling, survey director for the Understanding America Study, said according to LAist.

    The research also found that ethnic minorities had been hit hardest by job losses across the country, with 15% of white people saying they had lost their jobs, while 18% of Latinos and 21% of black people reported job losses.

    A woman carries away fresh food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank giveaway of 2,000 boxes of groceries, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
    A woman carries away fresh food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank giveaway of 2,000 boxes of groceries, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 
    REUTERS / Lucy Nicholson

    “Under normal circumstances losing a job without access to benefits would be bad enough, but in the current situation, chances of finding a new job are likely to be close to nonexistent,” Arie Kapteyn, director of the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, said in a statement seen by the LA Times.