Research Task 6

 L4 Creative Enterprise

Unit 1: The Creative Entrepreneur

Research Tasks

Task 6: The creative economy

•What 'industries' make up the creative industries?

The core government department for the broadly described ‘creative industries’ can be recognised into 9 sectors via the DCSM (Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport):

-          Advertising and marketing

-          Architecture

-          Crafts

-          Design: product, graphic and fashion design

-          Film, TV, video, radio and photography

-          IT, software and computer services

-          Publishing

-          Museums, galleries and libraries

-          Music, performing and visual arts

Everything and everything within the creative industries sits within at least one or multiple of these sectors. Each sector has a significant effect on our lifestyle, work and entertainment and therefore it must be taken into specialist attention to ensure the DCSM remains well funded and full of fresh opportunities. This relates strongly to cultural policy, where it is in the public and governments best interest to keep the creative industries protected, particularly in such a global crisis where the majority of people employed within in the arts have been put out of a job, entirely affecting their career. However, in the words of our government, they may be working in IT, they just don’t know it yet.

•How many people are employed in the UK?

Simply, there is no worse time for unemployment globally let alone nationally in the UK. Covid-19 has put the majority of self-employed people out of a career, shut down the arts industry almost entirely due to social distancing and put millions of people through the governments furlough scheme. The chart below portraits the collapse of unemployment in the UK at the very beginning of the outbreak in comparison to the last 15 years. This is the most up-to-date valid research chart found, now imagine the troths falling even further down as the year progressed. Unsurprisingly, the economic crash of 2008 is almost comical to the downfall of 2020. BBC News quotes “The most recent unemployment rate - for July to September - was 4.8%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). That is an increase of 0.7% over the previous three months and meant that 1.62 million people were unemployed”.

•How much do the creative industries generate each year?

There is no doubt that the creative industries are a hugely significant income source for the economy. To have towns and city centres full of lively, exciting and desirable sectors of the nine departments for DMCS raking in the money daily, it is unsurprising to see that the industry in 2018 made £117b, with 5x faster annual growth than the average with 1 in 11 jobs in the UK a part of this huge growth, that’s roughly 3.2 million jobs nationally. For the data to be released for 2019, this is likely to grow intensely as projected, the same as 2020 was likely to be another successful year for the creative industries before the introduction of Covid-19. However, with such extreme collapse of the creative industries s a result of the coronavirus, it could take years and years to get the industry back to the form we saw in 2018 statistically. The talent experience and education has been taken away from the youngsters, people will still be afraid to go out as we saw in the summer of 2020 and the idea of being in crowds of people will still seem alien and uncomfortable for years to come. To keep the cash rolling in, many firms have had to result to complete rebranding and alternative options to keep the business simply surviving within government regulations.

•What is the growth of the creative industries (comparatively)?

As mentioned, comparatively, the growth of the creative industries was forecast to expand spectacularly year after year, as more education in the arts are available, interest for live performances grow and the experience of going out had never been better, before 2020 hit. The infographic below, obtained by The Creative Industries Council UK, proves this point further. The graphic specifies the hotspot stars, cash cows and problem child of what sectors are responsible for the growth of the creative industries. I highly doubt statistics will reach a peak like this for years to come, however, once the world opens back up again, there will be drastic need for the creative arts and entertainment.