SPOTLIGHT ON NEW CULTURAL LABOUR FORCE DATA

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 16, 2004 — This week saw the release of new data from Sta­tis­tics Canada on the cul­tural sec­tor labour force.  (The data was released through The Daily, and also as the lead arti­cle in the lat­est Focus on Cul­ture, Vol.14, No.3.  It is avail­able through the StatsCan web­site at www.statcan.ca.)

The data cov­ers the period 1991–2002; high­lights and CCA analy­sis follow:

 

· Growth in the cul­tural sec­tor labour force grew by 31% over the period, con­sid­er­ably more than the work­force as a whole (20%).  How­ever, most of the growth occurred in the 1990s, with very lit­tle dur­ing the period 2000 to 2002.

· Total employ­ment in the sec­tor stands at nearly 578,000.  This fig­ure increases to an esti­mated 740,000 when man­u­fac­tur­ing, whole­sale and retail jobs are included.

· The direct impact of the cul­tural sec­tor as a con­tri­bu­tion to GDP was $26 bil­lion in 2001. ¹

· Income for Canada’s cre­ative and per­form­ing artists remains abysmally low, with the aver­age self-employed cul­tural worker earn­ing $18,000.  “For every suc­cess­ful cre­ative and per­form­ing artist there are many with earn­ings below those of the aver­age Cana­dian worker.”²

CCA: The sector’s eco­nomic impact has grown from $16 bil­lion in 1993 to $26 bil­lion in 2001.  Growth in the cul­tural labour force has out­stripped growth in the gen­eral labour force, edu­ca­tion lev­els are higher and unem­ploy­ment rates lower — but artists them­selves remain amongst the low­est paid and least val­ued mem­bers of our society.

· Gov­ern­ment sup­port increased by 6% in 2001 and 7% in 2002.  In 2000-01, fed­eral and provin­cial gov­ern­ment fund­ing of cul­tural activ­i­ties and insti­tu­tions in the form of grants and con­tri­bu­tions reached almost $1.9 bil­lion, a 30% increase over 1995.

CCA: Fed­eral fund­ing for cul­ture declined for eight con­sec­u­tive years before show­ing the reported increases. In 2001-02, fed­eral gov­ern­ment spend­ing for the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage rep­re­sented 1.8% of the total fed­eral bud­get; this is the same per­cent­age as 1996–97, but a drop from 2.1% in 1994–95 (see Table I).  [NB: Remem­ber — not all of this fund­ing went to cul­ture; Cana­dian Her­itage also encom­passed Parks Canada, sports, and offi­cial lan­guages.]  Arts orga­ni­za­tions are hav­ing to rely more on earned income than on oper­at­ing or cap­i­tal grants from gov­ern­ment.  All areas of the cul­tural sec­tor des­per­ately need ade­quate, sta­ble, multi-year fund­ing in order to sur­vive and thrive.  It is extremely dif­fi­cult to plan, pro­duce and remain fis­cally respon­si­ble when one has lit­tle idea from one year to the next what fund­ing will be available.

· Sales of cul­tural exports grew by 38% between 1996 and 2000 (reach­ing $4.5 bil­lion); how­ever, this growth had tapered off in the first years of the mil­len­nium.  Cul­tural imports also increased con­sid­er­ably, reach­ing $7.5 bil­lion in 2000, up 23% from 1996.

CCA: The fed­eral gov­ern­ment has intro­duced a num­ber of new ini­tia­tives to increase Canada’s cul­tural exports (eg: the recent cul­tural trade fair held in Paris, export mar­ket­ing work­shops pro­vided through Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil).  How­ever, CCA is con­cerned about the rise in cul­tural imports noted in the StatsCan report which, when linked to the decline in domes­tic demand for Canadian-produced arts and cul­tural prod­ucts (see below), does not bode well for the health of the cul­tural labour force as a whole.  The Paul Mar­tin gov­ern­ment is cur­rently con­sid­er­ing lift­ing the for­eign own­er­ship reg­u­la­tions in Canada’s broad­cast media and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­tries.  Given this sce­nario, Cana­di­ans could find them­selves with less access to Cana­dian cul­tural prod­ucts which would be irre­versibly dam­ag­ing for the entire sector.

· Domes­tic con­sumer par­tic­i­pa­tion in cul­tural events and activ­i­ties declined between 1992 and 1998, but expen­di­ture on cul­tural equip­ment³ grew by 30% over the period 1992–2000.

· Cul­tural pro­fes­sions show­ing marked increases dur­ing this period (11%-17% annual change) are dancers, actors, artisans/craftspeople.

CCA: Increased expen­di­ture on cul­tural equip­ment indi­cates a trend towards “cocoon­ing” by the pub­lic, rather than attend­ing live per­for­mances.  StatsCan analy­sis states that “while con­sumers are spend­ing more on cul­ture activ­i­ties than they did ten years ago at an aggre­gate level, in many cases this may be due to higher prices rather than increased demand.  With pub­lic con­sump­tion of cul­ture declin­ing, and arts com­pa­nies forced to rely more on earned rev­enue, where is the audi­ence that is going to pay the higher prices?  How will the increased num­bers of artists make a living?

This data leaves some impor­tant ques­tions unan­swered.  Fed­eral fund­ing for cul­ture received a sig­nif­i­cant shot in the arm in 2001 with the Tomor­row Starts Today fund­ing.  Why was there employ­ment growth in the cul­tural sec­tor in the 1990s when gov­ern­ment grants and con­tri­bu­tions were down?  Why did this growth flat­line between 2000 and 2002 when, in fact, there was a sig­nif­i­cant influx of new fund­ing?  One pos­si­bil­ity is that the fund­ing which was announced in May 2001 was slow to come on stream, and might only show up as a major fac­tor in the next data release.

Table I: Share of Total Fed­eral Bud­get to Cana­dian Heritage

1994–95	1996–97	2000-01	2001-02
$2.9 billion	-	$3 billion	$3.2 billion
2.1%	1.8%	1.7%	1.8%

Table II	1993  (Cul­tural Labour Force Survey)	2001
Direct eco­nomic impact	16 billion	26 billion
% of GDP	2.7%	2.75%

Table III	Cul­tural Labour Force Sur­vey (1993 snapshot)	Cul­ture Sec­tor Labour Force data (1991–2002)
Num­bers work­ing in the sector	670,000	740,000
% self-employed in sector	29%	25%
% self-employed among arts workers/culture occupations	54%	58%
Mean earn­ings for cul­ture occupations	$21,800	$28,291

Cau­tion: direct com­par­isons between the 1993 Cul­tural Labour Force Sur­vey data and the 1991–2002 Cul­ture Sec­tor Labour Force data are inad­vis­able as the def­i­n­i­tion of “cul­ture” itself (ie: which jobs/occupations are in, which are out) has changed dur­ing the period in ques­tion.  These tables have been com­piled to pro­vide a snap­shot based on avail­able data.

Table IV	Cul­tural sector	Total labour force
Unem­ploy­ment rates	7.9% (1991)  6.4% (2002)	10.3% (1991)  7.7% (2002)
% self-employment	25%	15%
Aver­age income	$28,000  (cul­ture work­ers, 1999)	$30,000  (1999)
Aver­age paid employ­ment  (as an employee)	$35,000  (cul­ture occu­pa­tions, 1999)	$31,000  (1999)
Aver­age income for self-employed workers	$18,000	$28,000
% work­ers with post-secondary degree/diploma	83%  (1999)	62%  (1999)
Job growth	31%	20%

Notes

1-This is an esti­mate only; StatsCan has a con­tract with the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage to final­ize the fig­ures up to 2002.  StatsCan cau­tions that com­par­i­son with other sec­tors and/or depart­ments is unad­vis­able, and fig­ures were unavailable.

2– Focus on Cul­ture, Sta­tis­tics Canada, Cat­a­logue no.87–004-XPB, Vol.14, No.3

3– Defined as home enter­tain­ment equip­ment, musi­cal instru­ments, artis­tic sup­plies, pho­to­graphic equip­ment, etc.