Runaway Production - Conflicting Employment Data On The U.S. Motion Picture Industry

Conflicting Employment Data On The U.S. Motion Picture Industry

In 1992, the MPAA claimed 164,000 Californians were directly employed in entertainment production, rising to 226,000 in 1996. Furthermore, in 1996, the estimated number of California jobs indirectly generated by the entertainment industry ranged from 233,000 to 253,100, which brought the "industry's total employment to well over 450,000." The MPAA claimed that entertainment production in California during 1996 generated $27.5 billion in economic activity for the state. The astonishing economic growth from 1992 to 1996, according to the MPAA, exploded for two reasons: (1) as the growth of multiplex theaters and cable television rose, it created a higher general demand for more entertainment media productions; and (2) "the possibility that this new production activity would occur outside California, or in other countries, did not materialize."

In 2004, the MPAA reported employment numbers for the entire United States. The employment numbers were broken into three categories: production and services (P&S), theaters and video tape rental, and other. In 1995, the total number of Americans employed in the motion picture industry was 283,700 (135,200 in P&S); in 1997, total employment was 323,000 (159,600 P&S); in 2000, total employment was 351,600 (182,100 P&S) and; in 2004, total employment was 367,900 (198,300 P&S). Hence, in 1997, according to the MPAA 2004 report, total U.S. motion picture employment of 323,000 represents a huge discrepancy from the MPAA's earlier claim that, in 1996, the industry employed over 450,000 workers in California alone. Adding to the confusion, The Commerce Report—which used the same BLS data cited by the MPAA—claimed 236,152 workers were employed nationwide in motion picture production and allied services in 1997.

In August 2005, the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) released a report commissioned by the California Film Commission on the economic impact of runaway productions. The report compared motion picture employment numbers gathered from the MPAA and the United States Census for the same year, 2002. The data from the MPAA and the Census was divided into two categories: (1) overall motion picture employment in the United States and; (2) the amount of motion picture employment in California—how much California captures of the total U.S. figure. In 2002, the Census reported that 153,000 people worked in the motion picture industry in the United States and, of that amount, 88,500 worked in California. The MPAA data for 2002 reported 353,076 workers in the motion picture industry in the United States, with 245,900 of those jobs in California.

The MPAA, in 1996, claimed that the film industry employed 750,000 Americans, a number that remained on the MPAA's Web Site in 2008.