California's Inland Empire emerged as a poster child of the pandemic-era e-commerce boom, with the warehousing industry fueling a hot labor market and a fast economic recovery. Now, the region is showing signs of trouble. Its strategic location near the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach means many of the items consumers buy online at places like Amazon.com or Target stop at one of the region's more than 4,000 warehouses before heading out to the rest of the US. That dynamic helped the region that spans across the Riverside and San Bernardino counties add jobs faster than both California and the rest of the US during the pandemic. As a result, logistics employment soared 40% since early 2020, and one in three of the Inland Empire's workers is employed in the broad trade, transportation and utilities sector. But the tide is turning, with imports into North America's largest port complex falling to an almost three-year low and the unemployment rate slowly rising as the transportation industry hits the brakes on hiring. (Read our full story here and watch the Bloomberg Quicktake here via Twitter.) The gloomy economic outlook is putting pressure on warehousing workers making $8 less than the national average for all occupations. To help, local authorities have requested $100 billion to expand infrastructure and address environmental concerns. But that's being met with hesitation by the some members of the community who say the constant construction is already contributing to high rates of asthma, heart disease and low birth rates. Read More: Walmart Sees More Than 2,000 Job Cuts in E-Commerce Warehouses While warehouses are still full and large developments are underway, experts are flagging that the region needs to be economically diversified. If it is over-reliant on a single industry, the Inland Empire could soon join the nation's long list of boom-and-bust cities. "When the party ends, then you know the drop will be even faster," said Johannes Moenius, an economist at the local University of Redlands. "The more warehouses we have today or tomorrow, the steeper the fall." —Augusta Saraiva and Amanda Albright in New York |
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