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The Creative Economy in Australia – What Census 2021 Tells Us

Nov 28, 2023
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Overview

This site presents key findings from an analysis of cultural and creative employment in Australia drawing on custom tables of employment data from the Census of Australia Population and Housing (2021).

The analysis uses the ‘creative trident approach’ – an innovative methodology for measuring the scale and make-up of the creative economy, and which considers:

a) creatives working in the creative industries
b) creatives working in non-creative industries, and
c) non-creative workers employed in the creative industries.

Throughout this work, creative sectors are grouped by:

– the mostly business-to-business creative services sectors, such as 1) advertising and marketing, 2) architecture and design, 3) software and digital content, and

– the mostly business-to-consumer cultural production sectors, such as 4) film, TV and radio, 5) music and performing arts, 6) publishing and 7) visual arts.

The work was conducted through a partnership with the University of Canberra, Creative Australia, the City of Sydney, the South Australian Government’s Department for Industry, Innovation and Science and the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.    

For more information, see Cunningham, S. and McCutcheon, M. 2022, The Creative Economy in Australia: What Census 2021 Tells Us, Briefing paper 1 and Briefing paper 2: Embedded creative employment and creative incomes.

The creative economy  

‘The creative economy’ includes creatives working in the creative industries, creatives working in non-creative industries, and non-creative workers employed in the creative industries.   

  • In 2021, the creative economy provided employment to 714,632 people in Australia.  
  • The creative economy’s share of total employment continues to increase, growing to 5.9% of the total workforce in 2021 from 5.5% in 2016. 
  • Between the Census years of 2016 and 2021, total creative employment grew by an annual average rate of 3.8%, well above the 2.4% for the rest of the workforce. 

Employment within the creative industries 

‘The creative industries’ includes people working in both creative and non-creative occupations within the creative industries.  

  • The creative industries provided employment to almost 500,000 people (496,334) in 2021, that is, to people in both creative (190,896) and non-creative (305,439) occupations. 
  • On average, the creative industries employ 1.5 times as many people in support roles as in core creative roles 
  • The sectors affected most adversely by the COVID pandemic were the performing arts, newspaper and periodical publishing and radio, with all sectors experiencing significant job losses. 

Creative employment  

‘Creative employment’ refers to employment within creative occupations, both within and beyond the creative sector. 

  • Creative employment is growing at a rate more than 50% higher than the rest of the workforce, despite some sectors being hit very hard by COVID.   
  • Creative incomes are on average higher than those in the rest of the workforce, although it should be noted that cultural production workers, particularly in music and performing arts, have lower incomes and work fewer hours than other creatives. 
  • There are more people in creative roles working in industries other than the creative industries (218,297) than within them (190,896). 

For further detail see Cunningham, S. and McCutcheon, M. 2022, The Creative Economy in Australia: What Census 2021 Tells Us, Briefing paper 1  

Embedded creatives are people employed in creative occupations outside the creative industries. Greater in number than specialist creatives within the creative industries (see ‘Creative employment’ above), they exemplify the diverse pathways that often make up creative careers, and the crucial contributions made by creativity across the economy. 

Embedded creatives – value of creativity across sectors 

  • There is strong evidence that creative workers ‘embedded’ in industries other than creative industries are in high demand. Embedded creatives are growing as a proportion of the workforce in most industries.  
  • The relatively high incomes earned by embedded creatives stand out both in comparison to the incomes earned by creative specialists and, even more dramatically, in comparison to other workers in the industry divisions that employ embedded creatives.  
  • These and related findings on embedded creatives are important for ‘joined-up’ thinking regarding opportunities in creative careers, the career life cycle of creative workers, and for greater understanding of what skills, practices, and expertise creatives bring to the wider economy.  

Embedded creatives – occupations and industries of employment 

  • ‘Creative services’ (or business-to-business) occupations provide much more opportunities for embedded employment in other industries than ‘cultural production’ (or business-to-consumer) occupations. Across Australia in 2021, 184,683 creative services professionals were working outside the creative industry – more than five times the number of cultural production professionals working in other industries. 
  • The largest employers of embedded cultural production expertise are the Education and Training and the Public Administration and Safety industries. Librarians and archivists, music professionals, writers and editors and actors and dancers are employed in significant numbers in Education and Training. The Public Administration and Safety industry employed many librarians and archivists and music professionals.  
  • In contrast, creative services workers are found across the economy, with particularly large numbers of Software and Digital Content specialists employed in Finance and Insurance Services and Public Administration and Safety, and Architecture and Design specialists in Manufacturing and Retail Trade.  
  • Insights from the analysis of embedded creatives have implications for education and training at school and tertiary level, and for innovation and industry policy, as well as cultural policy, programs and agencies. 

For further detail see Cunningham, S. and McCutcheon, M. 2022, The Creative Economy in Australia: What Census 2021 Tells Us, Briefing paper 2: Embedded creative employment and creative incomes.   

The following interactive dashboards allow for customised searches of creative jobs, creative intensity, and growth at different geographical levels, according to: 

Place of work 

Place of usual residence