Los Angeles — Monthly Port and Freight-Support Employment
Number of jobs in support activities for transportation (NAICS 488) in the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale Metropolitan Division, which covers Los Angeles County, in thousands, not seasonally adjusted. The industry includes port and harbor operations and marine cargo handling, but also freight forwarding and customs brokerage, airport ground services and other transport-support work, so it is broader than port jobs alone.
ArchiveFrom before CK Economics turned to global trade on October 16, 2026. Its figures are still collected and it stays at this address, but it is no longer part of our trade coverage.
Official statisticCK forecastSource figures as of October 10, 2026 · Exponential smoothing, damped trend, 6 months, 80% range of backtest errorsSources & methods
- Period covered
- Jan 1990 – Aug 2026
- Source figures as of
- October 10, 2026
- Geography
- Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale, CA Metropolitan Division (Los Angeles County)
- Sector
- Maritime Economics & International Trade (archived)
- Seasonal adjustment
- Not seasonally adjusted
- Transformations
- Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
- Forecast method
- Exponential smoothing, damped trend
- Assumptions
- Past patterns continue, with no policy change or shock; fitted to Sep 2006 – Aug 2026
- Horizon
- 6 months
- Interval
- 80% range of backtest errors
- Backtest
- Errors 17% smaller than a no-change forecast over the next 3 months, 21% smaller 3–6 months ahead (40 past dates)
- Estimated
- October 16, 2026
- Revisions
- Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
- Data status
- Provisional
- Limitations
- Figures from Aug 2026 on are preliminary at the source. Seasonal swings are left in: compare a period with the same period a year earlier.
Key figures
CK estimateThousand jobs · calculated by CK Economics from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data
- Latest · Aug 2026
- 56.8
- −4.4% vs a year earlier1
- 5-year change
- −3.2%
- since Aug 2021, −0.7% a year2
- 10-year change
- +0.2%
- since Aug 2016, +0.0% a year2
- Record high
- 63
- Jul 20223
- Record low
- 24
- Jan 19913
- Where the latest ranks
- 81st pct.
- Higher than 81% of the other 439 observations since Jan 19904
- CK forecast · Feb 2027
- 52.5
- 80% range 49–55.25
- 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
- 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
- 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
- 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.
- 5Final period of the CK forecast, a statistical projection from the model in the methodology, with its 80% range; rounded to three significant figures.
Seasonal pattern
CK estimateEach month of 2026 and 2025 against the average and range of the same month in 2021–2025. Calculated by CK Economics from the published series.
Methodology
Each value is the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) State and Area estimate of all employees on nonfarm payrolls in NAICS 488, Support Activities for Transportation, in the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale Metropolitan Division (Los Angeles County), in thousands of jobs, not seasonally adjusted. It counts jobs at establishments, not people, and reflects the pay period including the 12th of the month. The most recent month (August 2026) is preliminary, and BLS benchmarks the whole series each year to unemployment-insurance records, so recent figures may be revised. No transformation was applied; the series runs from January 1990 with no missing months. NAICS 488 is wider than port activity. In the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for Los Angeles County (private ownership, March 2025), support activities for water transportation (NAICS 4883, which includes port and harbor operations and marine cargo handling) accounted for about 14,500 of roughly 54,600 jobs in NAICS 488, or about 27%. Freight transportation arrangement (NAICS 4885, freight forwarders and customs brokers) accounted for about 35% and support activities for air transportation (NAICS 4881) for about 26%. Much of the freight-arrangement work is tied to the San Pedro Bay ports, but it also serves air and land freight. The data were downloaded from FRED and checked against the BLS Public Data API v2 for the same series ID; the latest ten months (November 2025 to August 2026) and a historical value (June 2010, 43.2) matched exactly. The series is not seasonally adjusted, so compare a month with the same month a year earlier rather than with the previous month. Projection: CK Economics statistical projection. The central path comes from exponential smoothing (ETS) on the logarithm of the series with a damped additive trend and a 12-month seasonal pattern, so recent growth is carried forward but fades over time. It runs only as far ahead as backtests support: the model is refitted at past dates, its forecasts are scored against what happened, and it is shown only for horizons where its errors were at least 5% smaller than those of the better of a no-change forecast and repeating the same month a year earlier. The shaded band is the 80% range of those backtest errors. It is a conditional estimate that extrapolates past patterns: it does not model policy, tariffs, recessions or other shocks, and it is not an official forecast of the source agency.
Source
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (State and Area), All Employees: Support Activities for Transportation, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA Metropolitan Division (SMU06310844348800001), via FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SMU06310844348800001 — figures as published on 10 October 2026.
The 6 projected periods are a CK forecast, not figures from the source; the methodology above describes how they are made.
All data
| Period | Value | Change y/y |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 56.8 | −4.4% |
| Jul 2026 | 56.2 | −5.7% |
| Jun 2026 | 55.6 | +3.5% |
| May 2026 | 56.5 | −1.6% |
| Apr 2026 | 56.2 | −3.1% |
| Mar 2026 | 55.9 | −3.6% |
| Feb 2026 | 56.1 | +4.1% |
| Jan 2026 | 56.9 | −2.2% |
| Dec 2025 | 58.5 | −1.3% |
| Nov 2025 | 59.2 | −1.5% |
| Oct 2025 | 59.5 | −0.2% |
| Sep 2025 | 58.4 | −2.8% |
| Aug 2025 | 59.4 | −0.3% |
| Jul 2025 | 59.6 | +2.6% |
| Jun 2025 | 53.7 | −0.2% |
| May 2025 | 57.4 | +2.1% |
| Apr 2025 | 58 | +1.8% |
| Mar 2025 | 58 | +1.2% |
| Feb 2025 | 53.9 | −2.0% |
| Jan 2025 | 58.2 | +1.9% |
| Dec 2024 | 59.3 | −0.2% |
| Nov 2024 | 60.1 | +6.2% |
| Oct 2024 | 59.6 | +2.2% |
| Sep 2024 | 60.1 | +5.6% |