Canada's cultural economy in 2023: A broad view
Macroeconomic analysis of national data from 2012 to 2023 related to jobs, revenues, and direct impact on GDP
Today’s post delves into economic indicators in 2023 for the arts, culture, and heritage in Canada, with an examination of changes since 2012.
Three key indicators are included:
Output (essentially an estimate of total revenues)
Direct impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Jobs
I analyze the output and GDP statistics three ways: 1) as published by Statistics Canada; 2) adjusted for inflation; and 3) adjusted for both inflation and population growth.
The analysis is based on Canada-wide statistics from Statistics Canada’s National Culture Indicators for 2023. The provincial dataset is generally one year behind, and I analyzed the provincial data for 2022 in early July.
This post is the first in a series of deep dives into the economy of the arts and culture in Canada. In subsequent posts, I plan to examine:
“The arts” as a whole (at least, a reasonable approximation thereof)
Components of the arts …
Film and video
Performing arts
Visual arts
Book publishing
What am I talking about in this post?
Good question.
Today’s post relates to very broad statistics, those for the overall cultural sector (which I also call “the arts, culture, and heritage”). These statistics include all nine domains captured in Statistics Canada’s economic data: live performance + visual & applied arts + written & published works + sound recording + audiovisual & interactive media + heritage & libraries + governance, funding & professional support + education & training + multi domain. See the bottom of this post for a description of each area.
The estimates of output (or “total revenues”) are quite broad: they are gross (not net) figures and include some double counting (e.g., when transactions are conducted between multiple organizations or individuals within the cultural sector). In contrast, the GDP statistics provide a measure of the net value-added to the economy. The jobs counts include both full-time and part-time positions and are not expressed on a full-time-equivalent basis.
As defined by Statistics Canada, culture sector GDP is “the economic value added associated with culture activities. This is the value added related to the production of culture goods and services across the economy, regardless of the producing industry. Culture jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of culture goods and services.”
The estimates relate to culture products, i.e., the production of culture goods and services from establishments in both culture and non-culture industries. The product-based estimates are typically a bit smaller than estimates of the revenues and value-added of cultural industries. Neither measurement is necessarily better. I am highlighting the product-based estimates simply because (to my surprise) they have become more commonly used in the sector than the industry-based estimates.
The GDP and jobs data capture direct impacts only and are therefore relatively modest. Excluded are commonly measured elements such as indirect impacts (the re-spending of the expenditures of cultural organizations) and induced impacts (the re-spending of wages earned by cultural workers and suppliers’ workers). Despite the smaller numbers, there are benefits to the narrower approach: the estimates are comparable between jurisdictions and to the GDP of other sectors of the economy.
I should also note that this is essentially an exercise in counting revenues and expenses, not the overall value of the cultural sector. There are many non-economic ways in which the cultural sector adds value to Canadian society.
Macroeconomics of the arts, culture, and heritage in 2023
In 2023, total revenues in the cultural sector were approximately $122 billion. This is a 27% increase from 2012 ($96 billion).
The arts, culture, and heritage had a direct impact on GDP of almost $61 billion in 2023, a 24% increase from 2012 ($49 billion).
There were 645,900 full-time and part-time jobs in the cultural sector in 2023, which is a 3% increase from 2012 (627,600).
These percentage changes seem very positive, maybe overly so. This analysis doesn’t examine different areas within the cultural sector, including those within the arts. I’ll examine these in future posts.
For the rest of today’s post, I’ll dig much more deeply into the broad cultural sector statistics ….
Adjustments for inflation and population growth
The above statistics are “nominal” ones, i.e., not adjusted for other important economic factors, such as inflation or changes in the population. Ideally, the cultural sector would see its economic indicators increase by at least the rate of inflation or (even better) inflation AND population growth.