California · NAICS 517 · Annual, 2025
Telecommunications in California
Employment, establishments and average pay for NAICS 517 in California, 2004–2025, from DTG's QCEW-based estimates.
In 2025, Telecommunications (NAICS 517) employed about 49,300 people in California across roughly 2,778 establishments, with average annual pay of $147,900.
Employment in Telecommunications in California declined 8.4% from 2024 to 2025. Average pay in the industry is 52.6% above the all-industries average in California. Employment fell 64.9% from 2004 to 2025. Quarterly values, full industry detail and projections to 2036 for California are included with a free account. County-level detail is part of every paid plan, or one county free for seven days.
- 49,300Employment, 2025
- 2,778Establishments
- $147,900Avg. annual pay
- 0.3%Share of California jobs
- 0.71Location quotient
Employment, 2004 to 2025
Annual average · all ownerships
Annual employment, 2004–2025: 2004 140,400; 2005 136,300; 2006 134,300; 2007 121,000; 2008 117,600; 2009 110,300; 2010 97,200; 2011 94,100; 2012 89,000; 2013 88,400; 2014 87,000; 2015 82,100; 2016 78,100; 2017 76,000; 2018 70,600; 2019 67,100; 2020 61,900; 2021 60,900; 2022 58,100; 2023 57,500; 2024 53,800; 2025 49,300.
Last ten years
Annual · 10 years
| Year | Employment | Estab. | Avg. annual pay | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 49,319 | 2,778 | $147,896 | 8.4% | pub. |
| 2024 | 53,819 | 2,871 | $145,980 | 6.3% | pub. |
| 2023 | 57,455 | 3,015 | $138,006 | 1.0% | pub. |
| 2022 | 58,052 | 3,104 | $133,929 | 4.7% | pub. |
| 2021 | 60,884 | 3,298 | $149,670 | 1.6% | pub. |
| 2020 | 61,901 | 3,399 | $136,611 | 7.8% | pub. |
| 2019 | 67,109 | 3,335 | $118,973 | 4.9% | pub. |
| 2018 | 70,594 | 3,473 | $105,378 | 7.1% | pub. |
| 2017 | 75,956 | 3,451 | $103,923 | 2.8% | pub. |
| 2016 | 78,115 | 3,453 | $98,983 | 4.9% | pub. |
† Not disclosed in QCEW; DTG estimate.
The full history from 2004 and quarterly values are available with a free account.
Where these numbers come from
Reading these figures
The figures on this page come from one named vintage, stated below, and are annual values for all ownerships combined. Where QCEW withheld a value, the marked figure is an estimate that DTG produced under the constraints of the published record; suppression is a property of QCEW, not of DTG, and a withheld value is marked rather than silently omitted. Two things DTG itself holds back, and says so where it does: an estimate that cannot be given a reliability score is not shown, and average pay is not shown where fewer than three jobs are reported. The row is marked withheld, with the reason in a note beneath the table. The mark is on every row that carries a value: the headline, the yearly history, the subsectors and the other states. An estimated value that rounds below one is shown as less than one, not as zero. Quarterly figures, county figures and projected years are in the app.
How this figure was built
Employment is the average of the three monthly counts in each quarter, averaged across the year, and establishments are averaged across the year the same way. Average annual pay is the year’s total wages divided by that average employment. Each of these is DTG’s value: QCEW’s published figure where QCEW disclosed it, and DTG’s estimate, marked, where it did not. How withheld values are estimated, and what the reliability score beside a figure means, are described on the industry data and disclosure and provenance pages.
Notes
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Telecommunications in California, quarterly, at full depth
This page shows annual figures for telecommunications in California. A free account shows every detailed industry beneath it, quarterly, for every state, with projections to ten years. No card.
County figures, file export and the API are on paid plans.