With relatively little fanfare, the South Bay and its mix of technology, entertainment and trade-related businesses has emerged as one of the hottest growth areas in Southern California.

A new survey by Manpower Inc. shows that 67 percent of businesses in the Long Beach/South Bay area are planning to increase their staffing during the first quarter of next year. That’s almost twice the figure for L.A. County as a whole and the highest percentage in all of California, where an average of 31 percent of companies are looking to hire in the first three months of next year.

Such data comes on top of numbers showing that South Bay jobs increased by 19.2 percent from 1995 to 1999, according to the Economic Development Corp. of L.A. County. That compared with 7 percent for L.A. County as a whole.

Robust regional growth is spread across satellite technology companies in El Segundo and Redondo Beach, software companies in Torrance, freight forwarding companies in Carson and Inglewood, and entertainment companies in Manhattan Beach.

One factor fueling the growth is the increasing number of employers who view the South Bay as a lower-cost alternative to the Westside.

“We’re seeing a push from the Westside to the South Bay,” said Cliff Numark, program director with the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance. “The cost of living is lower there compared to the Westside, and the quality of life is comparable.”

Plus, there’s still available land for expansion, close access to the Los Angeles International Airport, and an existing cluster of aerospace firms.

With a growing number of commercial applications for satellite-based data communications, many of the traditional South Bay aerospace companies, which were hammered by the recession, have successfully transitioned from Department of Defense and NASA contracting to private-sector work.

“There is an ongoing expansion in, for example, global positioning satellite (GPS) technology in the area,” said Joe Aro, executive director of the South Bay Economic Development Partnership.

Leading the pack is Hughes Electronics Corp. of El Segundo, which sold off its defense operations and focuses on building commercial satellites and developing its DirecTV services.

It’s not just the big boys like Hughes and TRW Space & Electronics Group in Redondo Beach (a division of TRW Inc.) that have diversified into commercial applications.

“There are clusters forming of post-aerospace, Internet and telecommunications enterprises,” said John Gaines, an El Segundo city councilman. “The infrastructure is in place here in the form of antennas and hard wiring, and we’re on the leading edge of a second phase in the telecommunications revolution when we move toward a wireless platform for broadband.”

Communications is not the only industry that has propelled economic growth. The sound stages at Raleigh Studios Manhattan Beach, home to “Ally McBeal” and other TV shows, are booked solid.

Perhaps most critical, though, is the steadily increasing flow of goods through the seaports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and through LAX, which is bringing more work to the region.

Through Oct. 31, year-to-date container traffic through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles was up by 10.6 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively, from a year ago, and cargo traffic at LAX was up by 3.2 percent for the year through Sept. 30.

As a result, freight forwarders and customs brokers are doing a brisk business. And with the continuing expansion of the port, and the impending addition of the Alameda Corridor, the volume of imports and exports through the ports is expected to keep increasing.

The demand for South Bay industrial space is growing so fast that some cities have gone so far as to ban warehousing, distribution and freight-forwarding operations from certain areas. Gaines said the city of El Segundo has prohibited such companies from the so-called Sleepy Hollow neighborhood, an area of older industrial buildings that has been designated exclusively for small, high-tech manufacturing startups.

“We don’t want freight forwarders there because they jam up the roads,” said Gaines. “But also because it is an industrial incubator and part of a balanced economic development plan. We don’t want to be tied to one dominant industry again.”