Los Angeles Turns Supply-Chain Mess Into Biggest Covid Rebound
The area’s employment growth and performance in the stock market has topped its U.S. peers.
Southern California is the supreme gateway for U.S. trade.
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images
America's shortage of labor, products and services — provoked by Covid-19's disruption of the global economy — has a platinum lining in Los Angeles.
Obscured by unprecedented supply-chain bottlenecks, California's largest city and No. 2 in the U.S. after New York, has no peers unloading, processing and transporting the nation's imports from its two busiest ports. Being the supreme gateway for U.S. trade helps make the Southern California area of about 630 square miles (Los Angeles, Long Beach and Anaheim) the fastest-growing labor market among the five largest American metropolises during the past year and perennially No. 1 for factory workers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.