Toni Grey’s telephone is blowing up today.
The pinnacle of manufacturing at Dhar Mann Studios, which makes exhibits for YouTube and different on-line platforms, mentioned leisure business mates in Los Angeles had as soon as held out earlier than looking for work within the digital realm.
However now, with jobs few and much between on the legacy studios, they’re reaching out “all the time” on the lookout for alternatives on the Burbank-based studio, identified for posting family-friendly dramas addressing matters like bullying.
Seeing a few of her friends now flock to be part of manufacturing firms constructed for distribution on YouTube and different on-line platforms is thrilling for Grey, who labored in conventional tv for greater than a decade and joined Dhar Mann Studios in February.
“It’s giving people hope that they can get back to work again,” she mentioned. “And it’s not just monetary hope for their house and their kids. It actually is giving their own being life again to bring their creative element.”
Pave Studios founder Max Cutler.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)
In Hollywood’s TV and movie industries, droves of employees are competing for jobs at a time when many firms are consolidating and shedding a whole bunch of individuals at a time. However one phase of the leisure business has emerged as a shiny spot — the economic system made up of individuals creating video for YouTube and social media.
That a part of the business, as soon as dominated by amateurs making humorous viral movies with smartphones has blossomed right into a formidable leisure power, the place video creators are establishing actual companies with massive studios in Southern California funded by means of promoting by main manufacturers.
Dhar Mann Studios plans so as to add 15 positions to its employees of about 75 full-time workers. In Sherman Oaks, Pave Studios, which produces wellness- and true-crime-related exhibits, is including 16 full-time employees to its employees of 67 contractors and workers.
Nationwide, there have been greater than 490,000 jobs supported by YouTube’s inventive ecosystem final 12 months, in response to the Google-owned video platform, citing information from Oxford Economics. That’s roughly 60,000 extra jobs than in 2023, YouTube mentioned.
“It’s beginning to mature into creators really building businesses,” mentioned Thomas Kim, YouTube’s director of product administration for creator monetization. “We see more and more of that, and that also means that the number of employees and help that they need to sustain their business has grown over time.”
Sean Atkins, chief govt of Dhar Mann Studios, known as it a giant progress alternative out there. YouTube is a serious participant in streaming, representing 12.5% of U.S. TV viewing in Might, in response to Nielsen, greater than streaming providers together with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
“Everything is so new and nascent,” mentioned Atkins, a former president at MTV. “I imagine, particularly when you walk around our studio … that this is what it looked like in the ‘20s when MGM and Disney and Warner [Bros.] were [founded]. Just this enthusiastic chaos where everyone’s trying to figure out what this environment is.”
The expansion in Southern California influencer companies is a boon to the native manufacturing economic system that’s in any other case struggling. L.A. County noticed a 27% decline to 108,564 workers from 2022 to 2024 within the movement image and sound recording industries, in response to information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Many Hollywood employees have struggled to seek out roles, as studios reduce down on their programming after the 2023 actor and author strikes and after overspending throughout the streaming wars. For years, productions have fled the world to reap the benefits of profitable monetary incentives out of state and overseas. Manufacturing in L.A. County additionally took successful following devastating wildfires in January.
In the meantime, the quantity of employment within the creator economic system is trending up, in response to the Los Angeles County Financial Improvement Corp. Whole employees within the L.A. County creator economic system, composed of companies corresponding to media streaming distribution providers and social networks, in addition to impartial artists, writers and performers, elevated 5% to 70,012 from 2022 to 2024, LAEDC mentioned. Firms within the creator economic system house additionally elevated 5% to 46,425 companies throughout the identical time interval, in response to LAEDC.
The grim job market has induced extra individuals who have labored in conventional studio and TV networks to use for jobs at digital media firms that produce content material for platforms corresponding to YouTube or work with influencers who’re rising their staffs.
The migration displays altering realities within the enterprise. Customers’ habits have shifted, the place extra persons are watching YouTube on TV screens today as a substitute of on smartphones within the U.S., consuming into territory held by broadcast and cable tv. Video creators have tailored, constructing manufacturing groups and increasing into podcasts, merchandise and typically scoring streaming offers.
For instance, one in all YouTube’s prime creators, Jimmy Donaldson, generally known as MrBeast, has a actuality competitors present on Amazon Prime Video, sells merchandise corresponding to Feastables sweets and has model partnerships and sponsorships. His North Carolina holding firm, Beast Industries, employs greater than 500 folks.
Kyle Hjelmeseth, chief govt of expertise illustration agency G&B Digital Administration, mentioned he’s receiving extra calls from folks coming with conventional media backgrounds looking for collaborations with influencers.
“Five years ago, it would have been very different,” he mentioned. “Anytime that somebody from Hollywood or the entertainment complex talked about creators, it was with such a different lens … a little bit like nose in the air.”
His firm, which has 25 contractors, part-time and full time workers, added 4 folks final month with plans to rent extra.
“All the pressures of what’s happening in Hollywood and the growth of the creator economy [are] crashing into each other in this moment, and that’s why we’re having a conversation about jobs, because there’s such a shift in the energy, and we’re certainly feeling it,” he mentioned.
Morgan Absher, left, and Kaelyn Moore, proper, file “Clues” podcast at Pave Studios.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)
Pave Studios launched final 12 months with fewer than 10 workers and now has grown to 67 contractors and workers. A part of that progress is fueled by the growing viewers for its movies and podcasts accessible on platforms together with YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The corporate is hiring for roles together with govt producers, with a pay vary of $95,000 to $145,000, relying on the present, mentioned founder Max Cutler.
“As we grow and as the business becomes more complicated, you need more specialists and more people,” Cutler mentioned. “Video is definitely a leading growth area for us.”
Jen Passovoy joined Pave Studios in January as a producer, after working for 10 years at Paramount on competitors sequence corresponding to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Ink Master.”
Passovoy, 34, mentioned the job marketplace for conventional studio and TV community employees is de facto powerful proper now.
“I know more people out of work right now than working, which says a lot,” she mentioned. “The traditional TV model just doesn’t exist in the same way anymore. Budgets are shrinking and the jobs that used to be steady aren’t there. There have been so many layoffs across the industry, and it’s forced a lot of incredibly talented people to rethink how and where they create.”
Expertise that individuals develop in conventional studio and TV roles can translate to digital-first roles, together with video editors for influencers and digital media firms, business observers mentioned.
The creator economic system additionally has extra specialised roles, corresponding to thumbnail designers — individuals who create the photographs used to tease movies on websites together with YouTube. These jobs will pay six figures yearly, as they are often instrumental for getting audiences to click on on these movies.
Roster, a hiring platform that lists job postings within the creator house, mentioned the variety of employers signing as much as rent on the location has elevated by almost 80% from January to June 2025. Based mostly on a sampling of 1,430 creator job posts in 2025, Roster mentioned the most well-liked open place was video editor (representing 42.5%), adopted by thumbnail designer (16.1%) and producer (10.6%).
There are downsides. Not all jobs are full-time. Many creators decide to rent freelancers.
“Their production needs need to expand and shrink like an accordion,” mentioned Sherry Wong, CEO of Roster. “That’s why we see a lot of creators, even if they’re really big established creators, they are hiring freelancers, contractors, and being able to keep it as lean as possible.”
With so many individuals on the lookout for work, there‘s intense competition for those jobs, and the ways to apply can be creative and involved.
Miami-based creator Jenny Hoyos found freelancers through a hiring challenge she hosted on Roster. Applicants were given 10 minutes of raw video footage and instructed to edit it down to a video short, roughly 30 to 60 seconds long.
Hoyos, 20, requested that applicants create a final product that was engaging, cohesive and matched her specific style. She received more than 100 submissions.
While there were strong contenders from California, the winners ended up being from Brazil and India. They became her two go-to freelancers, who she said are essentially working an amount equivalent to full-time editors.
This method of seeking talent was Hoyos’ method of creating certain the folks she introduced on to her crew have been prepared to go the additional mile, she mentioned. These hoping to interrupt into the digital media world don’t essentially need to have grown up with YouTube and social media like she did, however they do need to “commit to being addicted to watching” content material, she mentioned.
Not everybody who works for YouTube creators will get paid.
Screenwriter Natalie Badillo isn’t incomes a wage whereas she tries to construct up an viewers on YouTube. Badillo, who bought a self-titled challenge to HBO Max a couple of years in the past, mentioned she was on the lookout for a strategy to “not wait 8 billion years for a TV show to get picked up,” and making a YouTube channel, “Great Job Nat,” was a strategy to get her materials out into the world.
“Why wait for somebody to throw you a party when you can just throw your own party?” she mentioned.
Badillo attracts on her connections with people from the normal movie and TV world to provide the YouTube movies. Whereas the channel is getting up and operating, collaborators work for low pay or just for the enjoyable of it and to realize expertise. Nonetheless, her ambitions are massive. “I want to be the Jon Stewart of the West,” she mentioned.
The pay disparities may be a problem for folks from conventional media industries on the lookout for jobs. Whereas some packages that includes influencers and vertical excerpts of TV exhibits and flicks are lined by union agreements, different initiatives don’t have these protections.
“With temporary hiring, it’s like everything else in Hollywood — you either need to have another job that balances things out or you need to get to a critical mass of enough work on enough different projects,” mentioned Kevin Klowden, govt director at Milken Institute Finance. “The number of sustainable Hollywood jobs has shrunk.”
However as the 2 worlds collide, conventional media firms are already taking note of the recognition of creator exhibits and are looking for methods to companion with influencers. Amazon earlier this 12 months introduced extra seasons of MrBeast’s actuality competitors sequence “Beast Games,” and digital media firms are including folks with conventional media backgrounds to their staffs.
“It’s still a lot more tiptoeing,” Hjelmeseth mentioned. “Everybody’s kind of like looking at each other from across the room, like, ‘Should we dance?’”
