Built on two decades of designing crew training programs that connect communities to production employment, the Local Hire Rate measures crew wage retention across 77 film production incentive markets — and identifies where workforce investment will have the greatest impact on local jobs.
Every market with a production incentive is trying to build a local crew base. The Local Hire Rate provides a consistent framework for measuring whether that investment is working — and how much crew wage value is leaking to imported labor.
The Local Hire Rate measures each market as a percentage: the share of crew wages retained by locally trained workers. The higher the LHR, the more a market's incentive spend is recaptured by its own workforce.
Total crew wage leakage globally across all 77 markets analyzed
Addressable leakage (wages) — recoverable through targeted workforce investment
Jobs that could be filled by locally trained crew with proper training infrastructure
Average Department Head Import rate across developing incentive markets
Established production hubs provide reference points against which developing markets can measure their crew readiness. The gap between these anchors and emerging markets defines the opportunity.
| Market | LHR |
|---|---|
| New York | 95% |
| British Columbia | 93% |
| New Jersey | 68% |
77 market profiles — each with local hire rates, department head import rates, estimated crew wage leakage, addressable jobs, and data quality assessments.
Full methodology — transparent documentation of the LHR framework, data sources, two-tier jobs-lost calculation model, and the assumptions behind every number.
Addressable Leakage analysis — the primary scoreboard metric, identifying where workforce development investment will yield the highest return per dollar.
Market Opportunity Score™ — a proprietary index ranking where Last Mile workforce programs have the greatest opportunity for measurable return.
KSe Research is the research division of Kalison Studios, a workforce development consultancy with more than 20 years of experience connecting training programs to production employment across nine markets and three continents.
The LHR started with a question that kept coming up across those markets: how many locals are actually working on these productions? Glenn Kalison has seen training transform local economies — watched communities go from importing entire departments to staffing them locally. The LHR is the result of years spent turning that operational knowledge into reproducible data, so every market can measure where it stands and what targeted investment is worth.
Single User License — $1,499
Crew wage retention across 77 global film production incentive markets. Includes all market profiles, Department Head Import rates, addressable leakage analysis, Market Opportunity Score rankings, and full methodology appendices. Delivered as a watermarked PDF via email.
Single named-reader license — not for redistribution. Organization and enterprise licenses available on request.
Purchase Full Report →Secure checkout powered by Stripe. Your watermarked report will be delivered via email. For organization licenses, press access, or custom market analysis, contact institutional.sales@kalisonstudios.com.
The executive summary includes headline findings, anchor benchmarks, and sample market comparisons. The methodology overview explains how the LHR is built, what data it draws on, and how it converts to jobs.
Download Executive Summary + Methodology