Hollywood’s middle class is collapsing, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Production has slowed to historic lows, jobs are vanishing, and longtime workers are leaving Los Angeles in droves.

Animator Brian Mainolfi, who once worked with Chuck Jones and on Disney films like Mulan, hasn’t had steady work since 2024. His only income is $350 a week teaching three hours away. “By the end of the year if I don’t have something, I’m going to have to apply to a big-box store or a grocery store,” said the 54-year-old, now burning through savings.

Production manager Pixie Wespiser, 62, who has worked on 36 shows including Night Court, said: “This is the first year since 1989 that I haven’t had a show to work on. I look around and I see so many people who are seriously suffering.”

Oscar-winning sound mixer Thomas Curley hasn’t worked since April 2024. What he misses most is the teamwork: “Feeling like you’re part of a team that’s making something that can provide joy for millions…that level of purpose is a really hard thing to let go of.”

The downturn began after the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. Streamers, once in a content arms race, slashed spending to chase profitability. Nearly 30 percent fewer big-budget productions began in 2024 compared with 2022, and this year is down another 13 percent.

FilmLA reports that production in the region hit its lowest point, outside the pandemic, since at least 1995. Los Angeles County motion picture jobs fell from 142,000 in 2022 to about 100,000 by the end of 2024. Unemployment in L.A. is higher than state and national averages, worsened by wildfires and a housing crunch. With cheaper options abroad and new fears about AI replacing artists, recovery looks distant.

The Journal writes that the collapse has rippled far beyond film sets. Local businesses that once relied on entertainment workers are shuttering. Cookie shop owner Courtney Cowan, whose Milk Jar Cookies once thrived on studio orders, shut down in early 2024 and declared bankruptcy. “It’s not dramatic to say that the result has been personal financial ruin,” she said.

Some industry veterans are leaving the city altogether. Former assistant director Susan Hellman, who worked on shows like Entourage, sold her Venice home and moved to Florida after months without work. Animator Rachel Long, who built her career on series like BoJack Horseman, retrained as a phlebotomist. “I went from drawing blood to drawing blood,” she jokes, though her new job pays a fraction of her old salary.

California has expanded its film tax credits, and some producers are lobbying for federal ones. But studios continue to chase lower costs in Canada, Europe, and beyond. Producer Steven Paul, shooting The Last Firefighter in Los Angeles, admitted it cost far more than filming overseas but insisted, “If we’re going to say we want to bring production back to America, I can’t be the one filming everywhere in the world.” For thousands of workers, though, that fight may come too late.

As one writer put it: “It felt like the floor fell out.”

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