Income and Employment

While the Inland Empire led the state in job-growth with 275,000 new jobs between 1990 and 2000, most are in comparatively low-tech fields. San Bernardino and Riverside counties are primarily host to service and manufacturing- or warehousing-oriented industries. Food and administrative services employ the most people in the Inland Empire, while for the state of California, the top industries are in administrative services and professional, scientific and hi-tech-oriented fields. 79.8% of the IE's job growth from 1990-2003 was in service-sector jobs. Low-wage industries are abundant in the IE, and the high-tech and professional industries that are in the area actually pay more in other regions of California. As many as one-third of working adults commute out of the 27,000-square-mile region to find work, the highest proportion of any area in the country. Adding to gridlock, less than 5% of the IE's 1,249,224 working-age residents use public transportation to get to work each day. 14.5% carpool, while 79.7% typically drive alone to work in their cars. In 2007, the region had an unemployment rate of 6.1%, while overall jobless claims in California were at 5.4 percent and 4.4 percent nationally. In 2008, unemployment in the area increased to 9.5%, "3 percentage points higher than the national rate and 1.3 points higher than the state's rate of 8.2%."