In this post, I highlight some important facts about arts and culture workers in Canada, based largely on data that I commissioned from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey (LFS).

Key stats in this post: # of arts and culture workers. Hours worked. % of all Canadian workers. Self-employment rate for arts and culture workers, compared with the overall labour force.

I expect to have at least a few posts from this LFS data, so I’ll start with quite a few notes for you to keep in mind, especially when thinking about the pandemic-related statistics in tomorrow’s post. For other limitations, see the box at the end of this post on Limitations of the Labour Force Survey.

This LFS data request was a bit of a test case for me, and I only ordered Canada-wide data. If you’re interested in similar provincial data, please let me know in the comments section. (I don’t believe that municipal data from the LFS would be particularly reliable, except *maybe* for the largest cities.)

One major caveat before digging into what “arts and culture workers” means: I didn’t request data on the earnings of arts and culture workers, because the LFS questionnaire captures salaries only, not self-employment earnings.