Moonlighting in the nightlife: From indentured to precarious labor in Los Angeles Koreatown’s hostess industry

This article explores the emergence of precarious work within the hostess industry of Los Angeles Koreatown, an ethnic enclave cited as a hotbed of sex trafficking. Hostesses provide companionship, flirtation, and entertainment to male patrons in drinking settings. While hostess work in Koreatown historically relied on indentured migrant workers from South Korea, the 2008 recession combined with shifting US immigration laws transformed the occupational structure of the hostess industry to a contingency-based labor system, which increasingly depends on the labor of local US women. These women turn to hostess work in Koreatown because of their displacement from jobs in the dominant US labor market. I argue that the emergence of precarious labor in Koreatown’s hostess industry reflects larger economic shifts within the labor market and political economy of Los Angeles. Looking at hostess work in Los Angeles Koreatown’s sexual economy provides a window to the labor instability of young women in the USA and across borders.