Jobs in Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is a metro of roughly 12.9 million people with an unusually diverse job base — entertainment, aerospace, logistics, healthcare, and a fast-growing tech sector. Entertainment hiring moves with production cycles; tourism and logistics hire heavily into summer. A résumé tailored to each posting is what gets you past the screen.
The Los Angeles job market at a glance
The Los Angeles metro is home to roughly 12.9 million people across California. Hiring is concentrated in Entertainment & Media, Aerospace & Defense, Logistics & Trade, Healthcare, and Technology — so the fastest path to interviews is a résumé tailored to each posting in those fields, not one general resume sent everywhere.
Where the jobs are in Los Angeles
These are the sectors hiring most actively in Los Angeles, with the major employers in each. Apply directly on their career pages — a tailored résumé sent straight to the source beats an aggregator every time.
Entertainment & Media
Aerospace & Defense
Healthcare
Pay and cost of living
The median household income across the Los Angeles metro is roughly $80,000 USD. Individual professional salaries vary widely by sector and seniority — always weigh an offer against local cost of living before comparing it to a number from another city.
When Los Angeles hires
Entertainment hiring clusters around production cycles — staffing tends to peak in late winter and early fall. Tourism, hospitality, and logistics ramp hard into the summer. Healthcare and aerospace hire steadily year-round.
Local job boards in Los Angeles
Beyond the big employers, these Los Angeles-area boards are where smaller local businesses and community organizations post openings:
- LA2050 Jobs Board — LA-based nonprofits, foundations, cultural institutions, and social-impact orgs.
- LA Area Chamber of Commerce — Job Opportunities — Regional chamber board for Los Angeles–area member businesses.
Every employer and board above wants a résumé tailored to the specific posting — that is the real work of a Los Angeles job search, and most of the reason good candidates stall. Job Scout does it for you: we rewrite your résumé for each role, verify the posting is live, and hand you a ready-to-send application package.
See how Job Scout worksCommon questions about jobs in Los Angeles
What are the highest-paying jobs in Los Angeles?
Aerospace engineering, senior entertainment-industry roles (showrunners, post-production supervisors, studio executives), specialized medicine, and software engineering top the LA pay scale. Aerospace and tech offer the most predictable six-figure paths; entertainment pay is high at the top but highly variable below it.
Is Los Angeles good for jobs outside the entertainment industry?
Yes — LA is far more diversified than its reputation suggests. Aerospace and defense (SpaceX, Northrop Grumman), healthcare (Kaiser, Cedars-Sinai, UCLA), logistics around the ports, and a growing tech sector all hire heavily. Entertainment is the headline industry but not the largest employer base.
How do you find a job in LA?
Apply directly on employer career pages with a résumé tailored and keyword-matched to each posting. LA is geographically spread out, so filter for commute realistically. For entertainment roles, industry-specific job boards and referrals matter more than general aggregators.
What is the job market like in Los Angeles in 2026?
The LA market in 2026 is steady, carried by healthcare, aerospace, and logistics, with entertainment hiring more cautious after recent industry disruption. Tech continues to grow. Across all sectors, tailored applications outperform generic ones because application volume per posting is high.
How much do jobs in Los Angeles pay on average?
Median household income across Greater LA is roughly $80,000. Professional roles in aerospace, tech, and healthcare commonly run $85,000 to $150,000. Cost of living, particularly housing, is high — weigh any LA offer against rent before comparing it to another metro.
Keep your search moving
Job markets in other cities:
Guides that apply wherever you are searching:
- How to beat an ATS in 2026
- How to tailor a resume to a job posting
- How to write a LinkedIn profile recruiters find
Or browse every city we cover.
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