Anaheimruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Theme parks, hospitality & events
Disneyland Resort, Anaheim Convention Center, Great Wolf Lodge, the Resort district hotels, OC Vibe at Honda Center
Anaheim is anchored by a single employer to an unusual degree: the Disneyland Resort employs around 36,000 cast members and is the largest employer in Orange County. Add the convention centre — the largest exhibition facility on the West Coast — and hospitality is not one sector here, it is the economic base. That concentration cuts both ways, and the 2020 closure demonstrated exactly how.
Aerospace & defence
Boeing (Huntington Beach/Seal Beach), Northrop Grumman, Anduril Industries (Costa Mesa), a deep tier-two supplier base across north Orange County
Orange County's older industrial spine, built around machining, composites and avionics rather than headquarters. Most roles need US citizenship and a clearance, which makes it context for new arrivals rather than an accessible market — but the supplier tier hires more openly.
Medical devices & life sciences
Edwards Lifesciences (Irvine), Alcon, Glaukos, Masimo, B. Braun (Irvine), the wider Irvine device cluster
Orange County is one of the densest medical-device clusters in the world, concentrated a few freeway exits south in Irvine rather than in Anaheim itself. It is the county's best-paid non-tech sector and a genuine reason to be in this metro rather than in Los Angeles.
Health care
Kaiser Permanente Anaheim, AHMC Anaheim Regional Medical Center, Providence St. Joseph (Orange), CHOC Children's (Orange), UCI Health
The largest employment sector not tied to the tourism cycle, and the most reliable local hiring when tourism turns. CHOC in neighbouring Orange is one of the region's two paediatric referral centres and is a short drive from anywhere in the city.
Logistics, food production & light manufacturing
Anaheim Canyon business park, Northgate González, Kellogg's legacy plant sites, the Tustin Avenue and La Palma industrial corridors
Anaheim Canyon, north-east of the 91, is one of the largest industrial districts in Southern California and the reason the city has a large blue-collar employment base that visitors never see. It is also the part of the local economy least dependent on Disney.
Construction & real-estate development
DisneylandForward, OC Vibe at Honda Center, the Platinum Triangle build-out
Two very large approved projects will be building through the rest of this decade. Anaheim approved the DisneylandForward development agreement in May 2024 — a roughly $1.9 billion, ten-year investment with committed community benefits including $30 million for affordable housing — and the Ducks' ownership is redeveloping the land around Honda Center. Construction and the trades are hiring accordingly.
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