Employment
The city of Riverside has an established economy that provides a diverse range of employment options. With the city’s large government and educational entities, public administration is the largest employing sector, followed by manufacturing and retail trade. Riverside’s largest employer is the County of Riverside, which employs about 7,000 people. The University of California, Riverside is a close second with about 6,300 employees.
The top private companies in the city in terms of employment are Kaiser Permanente Medical, Fleetwood Enterprises Manufacturing and Specialty Brands Food. Kaiser employs 4,000; Fleetwood employs 2,400; and Specialty Brands employs 1,500. Other large companies in the city include SBC Communications, Press Enterprise News, BF Goodrich Manufacturing and Pepsi Bottling Group.
About 46 percent of the workforce lives and works in Riverside. There is a slight increase in the daytime population of the city, 4.6 percent, due to commuting. The average travel time to work is less than 30 minutes. As of the last census, the rate of unemployment in the city was 7.9 percent.