LA’s rising rents are taking a toll on employee retention: report

Raphael Bostic
Raphael Bostic

Sky-high residential rents are negatively impacting employee retention at L.A. companies, a new report shows.

Nearly two-thirds of employers surveyed by the University of Southern California and the L.A. Business Council said they’ve had to significantly reconsider the cost of living when negotiating packages for top-level recruits, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. Employers accounting for nearly 200,000 jobs were surveyed.

Three quarters of the companies surveyed cited housing costs as a negative factor in employee retention, and nearly every employer said that more than a quarter of their staff has a commute longer than 90 minutes.

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“Though we have yet to see a critical mass of businesses priced out of the region, this is an area of concern,” the report’s author, USC professor Raphael Bostic, said in statement. “There’s ample evidence to show that the time is now to implement strategies to reduce housing costs.”

The report provided a list of recommendations for increasing housing supply, including parking requirement reductions and more employer-sponsored housing projects. [LABJ]Cathaleen Chen