The Task Force on Cultural Employment, reporting to the European Working Group on Cultural Statistics (active during the period 2000–2004), placed emphasis on the use of a single statistical source for cultural employment estimates: the EU Labour Force Survey.
This survey makes it possible to estimate cultural employment by crossing cultural activities classified by NACE with cultural occupations classified by ISCO. This calculation method was applied in the first edition of the ‘Cultural statistics’ pocketbook published in 2007. The matrix was based on NACE Rev.1.1 and ISCO-88 classifications.
Since then, both classifications have been revised, but only a classification of economic activities (NACE Rev.2) has been already implemented in the LFS (starting from 2008). The new ISCO-08 will be implemented in 2011. Instead of creating the intermediate matrix for NACE Rev.2 and old ISCO-88, it was decided to adopt a transitional solution for the second edition of the pocketbook by presenting employment data separately for cultural sectors and for cultural occupations. Due to the adoption of different approaches, the comparison of data presented in the second edition of the pocketbook with those published in 2007 is not possible.
Concerning economic sectors, as data by NACE 3-digit level are not available for all countries, five ‘cultural’ NACE groups at 2-digit level were selected for analysis:
- NACE 58 - Publishing activities
- NACE 59 - Motion picture, video and television programme production, sound recording and music publishing activities
- NACE 60 - Programming and broadcasting activities
- NACE 90 - Creative arts and entertainment activities
- NACE 91 - Libraries, archives, museums and other cultural activities
Regarding occupations, in the EU-LFS only ISCO-88 data at 3-digit level are available for all countries. In this publication, two groups composed entirely of cultural headings are analysed:
- ISCO 243 - Archivists, librarians, and related information professions
- ISCO 245 - Writers and creative or performing artists (authors, journalists, sculptors, painters, composers, musicians, singers, choreographers, dancers, actors, directors and other related artists)
