The IE's job engine has flipped from warehouses to hospitals

Citrus Belt Review: The Labor Department's May jobs report, released June 5, put national payroll growth at 172,000 with warehousing and storage adding just 6,000 jobs. The longer arc is the story for this region: transportation and warehousing employment nationally is down 92,000 since peaking in February 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The corridor's own numbers, from the state EDD's April report, follow the same script. Trade, transportation and utilities lost an estimated 1,400 jobs in April — the largest decline of any sector — while healthcare led all gains with 2,600 new positions. The Inland Empire Economic Partnership has been calling the logistics slide a freight recession for months, and the stakes are structural: healthcare, logistics and local government together account for more than half of all IE employment.

The pattern holds at both levels. The region that built its last two decades of job growth on goods movement is now getting its growth from hospitals and clinics — and the national data released this week shows the same substitution playing out across the country. The next read on whether May changed anything locally comes when EDD releases IE figures around June 19.