Employment levels in the culture
sector are rising across Europe including in Italy, according to
the third annual report by Associazione Civita.
The report, entitled "L'Arte di produrre Arte. Competitività
e Innovazione nella Cultura e nel Turismo" ('Art Produces Art,
Competition and Innovation in Culture and Tourism'), noted that
614 people were employed in the sector in 2015, a 3.7% rise on
2011.
In Germany, double the number of people are employed in the
sector and 84% more in the UK , while a sizeable part of the
jobs in the culture sector are not generated by the state and
other sectors and not by Culture and Creative Industries (CCI) .
However, for the first time ever, a global market is opening
up that will enable Italy to compete at higher levels, the
report shows.
This year's report was curated by Pietro Antonio Valentino and
focuses on innovation, especially of the type produced by the IT
revolution and the spread of the internet, which has changed
both the ways of producing and of consuming culture as well as
the relationship between supply and demand in the tourism
sector.
Looking at UNESCO and Eurostat data, the curator noted, one
sees a much less "positive" situation than when looking at those
of many empirical studies conducted in Italy, which show a large
amount of untapped potential for growth in the sector and its
importance of the national economy and local development.
Taking into consideration the contribution of cultural
employment to overall employment, other countries are doing
better than Italy. But it is also true that the contribution of
CCI to other countries' economies is also relatively low.
The highest level is the UK, where in 2015 cultural
employment stood at 3.6% of the total, while in Germany it was
3% and in Italy and France 2.7%, both of the latter below the
EU-28 average of 2.9%.
As concerns productivity, the Italian ICC average was higher
than that in Spain - almost 41,000 euros "produced" per worker
compared with 28,000 - but lower than that of all other
countries in Europe as well as than the 44,000 average.
The UK led productivity with 108,800 euros per worker in the
sector, followed by France and Germany (58,500 and 50,300).
The report said that what makes the cultural and creative
sector strategic for national and territorial reasons is firstly
that employment in the sector in all the countries taken into
consideration held up better under the crisis than in other
sectors.
In Italy, five years into the crisis, some 42% of new
audiovisual companies are still running, 40% of those in design,
34% of those in the entertainment and visual arts field, and 40%
of museums, libraries and archives, putting Italy in the top
ranks in some cases among European countries.
The second reason is on the issue of "IT revolution", which
is extending the market to an ever more international level.
photo: report author Valentini
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