Job vacancy crisis in the arts?

Canadian and provincial data

October 2022 note: Updated data are available here…

Job vacancy crisis in the arts: Is it getting better?

I have heard in multiple settings recently that there is a huge challenge in finding qualified people to work in certain arts and culture jobs. In this post, I investigate what the available statistics tell us about the scale and duration of this challenge.

Job vacancy rates are published:

• by industry group (not by occupation)

• for payroll employees only

The focus will be on the Statistics Canada industry grouping of workers in “arts, entertainment, and recreation”, with a secondary focus on “information and cultural industries”. The groupings are not as precise as we’d all like, but they’ll have to do, given that finer industry estimates are not as up to date and not nearly as reliable.

I’ll also look at average wages offered for vacant positions to see if they have changed recently.

My investigation of the available data finds that there has been a very high level of job vacancy in the broader arts and entertainment sector for about a year now. There are substantial variations in the job vacancy rate across the country. Despite recent increases, average wages offered in the sector are lower than almost every other broad economic grouping.

Historically high job vacancy rates

Arts, entertainment and recreation (AER)

Note: Includes Performing arts, spectator sports, and related industries (code 711); heritage institutions (code 712); amusement, gambling, and recreation industries (code 713).

In the arts, entertainment, and recreation industry grouping, the job vacancy rate was 6.8% in March 2022, double the rate before the pandemic (3.4% in the last quarter of 2019).

In March 2022, there were 17,100 job vacancies and 233,100 payroll employees in AER.

The job vacancy rate has been particularly high since April of 2021, when the sector experienced a record monthly vacancy rate of 8.8%. That appeared to be an inflection point, when the vacancy rate became much higher than previous levels, which were typically well below 5% (even using quarterly data that go back further than the chart below).

The March 2022 job vacancy rate in AER (6.8%) was higher than the economy-wide average of 5.9%.

Data on the wages offered by employers for vacant positions are published quarterly (not monthly), with the most recent data from the end of 2021. At that time, the average hourly wage offered by employers for vacant positions in the arts, entertainment, and recreation was $18.60. Even at this low level, it is a 12% increase from two years earlier (not adjusted for the roughly 4% inflation during that period).

The average wage offering of $18.60 is the third lowest among the 20 broad industry sectors tracked by Statistics Canada. Since the start of this dataset in 2015, the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector has consistently ranked in the bottom three sectors for the average wage offering.

The average wage offering in AER at the end of 2021 ($18.60) was 19% below the economy-wide average ($22.95). Pre-pandemic, the difference compared with the economy-wide average was consistently above 20%.

Provincial job vacancy data are available quarterly, not monthly. In most provinces, the AER job vacancy rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 exceeded the overall job vacancy rate in the province. There are substantial variations across the country, with a particularly high AER job vacancy rate in British Columbia (8.6%) and Quebec (6.8%). In the same quarter, the national AER job vacancy rate was 5.9%. (Note that the Atlantic estimate in the chart below is my rough estimate based on incomplete and less reliable provincial estimates).

Information and cultural industries (ICI)

Note: Includes Publishing industries (except internet) (code 511); Motion picture and sound recording industries (code 512); Broadcasting (except internet) (code 515); Telecommunications (code 517); Data processing, hosting, and related services (code 518); Other information services (code 519).

In the information and cultural industries grouping, the job vacancy rate was 5.2% in March 2022, significantly higher than the rate of 3.9% in the last quarter of 2019 (but still below the 5.9% vacancy rate in the economy as a whole).

In March 2022, there were 20,300 job vacancies and 368,800 payroll employees in the information and cultural industries.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the average hourly wage offered by employers for vacant positions in the information and cultural industries was $33.25. This is a 25% increase from two years earlier (not adjusted for the 4.1% inflation during that period).

Canadian economy as a whole (all industries)

The economy-wide job vacancy rate was 5.9% in March 2022, a significant increase compared with the final quarter of 2019 (3.0%).

The job vacancy rate has been quite high since July of 2021, when the rate reached 5%.

In March 2022, there were just over 1 million job vacancies (a record level) and 16.1 million payroll employees.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the average hourly wage offered for vacant positions was $22.95. This is a 6% increase from two years earlier (not adjusted for the 4.1% inflation during that period).

Conclusion

My investigation of the available data finds that there has been a very high level of job vacancy in the broader arts and entertainment sector for about a year now. There are substantial variations in the job vacancy rate across the country. Despite recent increases, average wages offered in the sector are lower than almost every other broad economic grouping.

Sources

Statistics Canada. Table 14-10-0372-01  Job vacancies, payroll employees, and job vacancy rate by industry sector, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality.

Statistics Canada. Table 14-10-0326-01  Job vacancies, payroll employees, job vacancy rate, and average offered hourly wage by industry sector, quarterly, unadjusted for seasonality.

In the works…

Tomorrow, I’ll start a series of posts on the related topic of arts and culture workers, based on data that I commissioned from the Labour Force Survey.