The South Coast region (composed of the counties of Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange) became a national leader in the aerospace industry during the 1970s and 1980s: over a quarter million residents in Los Angeles County alone worked in aerospace each year, including 1 in 3 manufacturing workers and a third of the nation’s aerospace engineers. Defense companies benefited from large federal defense contracts (e.g., $18 billion total in 1988) and provided well-paying manufacturing, production, and engineering jobs. Average pay in the aerospace industry stayed above 100 percent of comparable jobs in other industries in all occupational groups. Growth in aerospace enabled expansion of the financial services industry and international trade via the Port of LA and Port of Long Beach.

However, downturns in defense spending in the early 1990s cut the number of aerospace jobs in half from mid-1980s levels. A statewide recession exacerbated the problem, leaving workers with few opportunities to move to equal or better paying jobs. Many workers left the region, while immigrants moved in. L.A.’s Latino population increased from 18 percent of total residents to 47 percent between 1970 and 2000. But the well-paying manufacturing and production jobs never returned, contributing to the region and state’s current overrepresentation of Latino workers in low-wage jobs.