⚠️ Unconfirmedsocial2022

Cultural employment — share of total employment

Name: Cultural employment — share of total employment
Creator: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Keywords: statistic-of-the-day, ai-generated, culture, creative economy, employment, labor market, arts, media, UNESCO, UIS

Share of a country’s workforce employed in cultural occupations and industries, using UNESCO Institute for Statistics cross-country comparable measures.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)•169 countries

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Key Insights

Global Average

1.2%

Median: 0.8%

Countries Covered

169

with available data

Highest

Sweden

4.5%

Lowest

Zambia

0.2%

Top 5 Countries

1Sweden4.5%

2United States of America4.5%

3Finland4.2%

4United Kingdom4.2%

5Switzerland4.1%

By Region

Oceania2.9%(2 countries)

Europe2.8%(31 countries)

North America2.4%(4 countries)

South America1.5%(7 countries)

Asia0.9%(23 countries)

Key Findings

•Across countries, cultural employment typically represents a small but significant share of total jobs—often around 1–4%.
•High-income economies with large media/creative services sectors tend to report higher cultural employment shares.
•Lower reported shares in many low-income countries may reflect both economic structure and undermeasurement of informal cultural work.
•The indicator provides a comparable way to track the creative economy’s labor footprint over time, where repeated survey-based measurements exist.

Country Rankings

Top 10 Countries

Bottom 10 Countries

Data Analysis

Value Distribution

How countries are distributed across the value range

Low (0.2%)High (9.8%)

Regional Comparison

Average values by world region (Global avg: 1.2%)

Oceania (2)

Europe (31)

North America (4)

South America (7)

Asia (23)

Other (93)

Africa (9)

About This Statistic

This statistic measures the percentage of a country’s total employed population who work in the cultural sector—covering both cultural occupations (e.g., artists, designers, writers) and cultural industries (e.g., publishing, audiovisual, heritage, performing arts) as defined under UNESCO’s statistical framework.

Because it draws on labor force surveys and harmonized cultural classifications, it offers a comparable lens on how large the “creative economy” workforce is across countries. Differences reflect economic structure, the size of media/creative industries, formalization of work, and how completely cultural activities are captured in labor statistics—so it’s best used for broad comparisons and trend tracking rather than pinpoint precision for a single year.

Full Data

Rank ↑	Country ↕	Value ↕
1	Sweden	4.5%
2	United States of America	4.5%
3	Finland	4.2%
4	United Kingdom	4.2%
5	Switzerland	4.1%
6	Estonia	4.0%
7	Norway	4.0%
8	Netherlands	3.9%
9	Denmark	3.7%
10	Latvia	3.6%
11	New Zealand	3.6%
12	Ireland	3.5%
13	Lithuania	3.4%
14	Slovenia	3.3%
15	Belgium	3.3%
16	Luxembourg	3.2%
17	Germany	3.1%
18	Canada	3.0%
19	France	2.6%
20	Czech Republic	2.5%
21	Spain	2.5%
22	Poland	2.4%
23	Italy	2.3%
24	Croatia	2.2%
25	Portugal	2.2%
26	Slovakia	2.2%
27	Australia	2.2%
28	Hungary	2.1%
29	Israel	2.1%
30	Chile	2.0%
31	Greece	2.0%
32	Singapore	2.0%
33	Bulgaria	1.9%
34	Costa Rica	1.9%
35	Japan	1.9%
36	South Korea	1.9%
37	Andorra	1.8%
38	Georgia	1.7%
39	Uruguay	1.7%
40	Colombia	1.6%
41	Türkiye	1.6%
42	Argentina	1.6%
43	Solomon Islands	1.6%
44	Country 200	1.5%
45	Serbia	1.5%
46	Armenia	1.5%
47	Albania	1.4%
48	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1.4%
49	Brazil	1.4%
50	Mexico	1.3%
51	Romania	1.3%
52	The Republic of North Macedonia	1.3%
53	Belarus	1.2%
54	Cuba	1.2%
55	Moldova, Republic of	1.2%
56	Peru	1.2%
57	South Africa	1.2%
58	Azerbaijan	1.2%
59	Cyprus	1.1%
60	Malaysia	1.1%
61	Austria	1.1%
62	Kazakhstan	1.0%
63	Montenegro	1.0%
64	Panama	1.0%
65	Russian Federation	1.0%
66	Thailand	1.0%
67	Ukraine	1.0%
68	Taiwan, Province of China	0.9%
69	Ecuador	0.9%
70	Jamaica	0.9%
71	Jordan	0.9%
72	Tunisia	0.9%
73	Brunei Darussalam	0.9%
74	Country 150	0.8%
75	Dominican Republic	0.8%
76	El Salvador	0.8%
77	Honduras	0.8%
78	Indonesia	0.8%
79	Cote d'Ivoire	0.8%
80	Lebanon	0.8%
81	Paraguay	0.8%
82	Saint Lucia	0.8%
83	Saudi Arabia	0.8%
84	United Arab Emirates	0.8%
85	Venezuela	0.8%
86	Bahamas	0.8%
87	Cayman Islands	0.7%
88	Guatemala	0.7%
89	India	0.7%
90	Kyrgyzstan	0.7%
91	Mauritius	0.7%
92	Nicaragua	0.7%
93	Philippines	0.7%
94	Qatar	0.7%
95	Suriname	0.7%
96	Algeria	0.7%
97	Bahrain	0.7%
98	People's Republic of China	0.6%
99	Benin	0.6%
100	Fiji	0.6%
101	Kuwait	0.6%
102	Mongolia	0.6%
103	Morocco	0.6%
104	Pakistan	0.6%
105	Saint Kitts and Nevis	0.6%
106	Trinidad and Tobago	0.6%
107	Egypt	0.6%
108	Uzbekistan	0.6%
109	Barbados	0.6%
110	Bolivia	0.6%
111	Cape Verde	0.5%
112	Ghana	0.5%
113	Nepal	0.5%
114	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	0.5%
115	Vietnam	0.5%
116	Bangladesh	0.5%
117	Cambodia	0.4%
118	Cameroon	0.4%
119	Sri Lanka	0.4%
120	Equatorial Guinea	0.4%
121	Falkland Islands (Malvinas)	0.4%
122	Gabon	0.4%
123	Gibraltar	0.4%
124	Kenya	0.4%
125	Libya	0.4%
126	Namibia	0.4%
127	Vanuatu	0.4%
128	Saint Helena	0.4%
129	Zimbabwe	0.4%
130	Tuvalu	0.4%
131	Angola	0.4%
132	Myanmar	0.3%
133	Central African Republic	0.3%
134	Republic of the Congo	0.3%
135	Ethiopia	0.3%
136	Haiti	0.3%
137	Lesotho	0.3%
138	Madagascar	0.3%
139	Mozambique	0.3%
140	New Caledonia	0.3%
141	Nigeria	0.3%
142	Papua New Guinea	0.3%
143	Senegal	0.3%
144	Eswatini	0.3%
145	Botswana	0.3%
146	Burundi	0.2%
147	Chad	0.2%
148	Democratic Republic of the Congo	0.2%
149	Eritrea	0.2%
150	Djibouti	0.2%
151	Republic of The Gambia	0.2%
152	Guinea	0.2%
153	Liberia	0.2%
154	Macao	0.2%
155	Malawi	0.2%
156	Mali	0.2%
157	Mauritania	0.2%
158	Niger	0.2%
159	Rwanda	0.2%
160	Sierra Leone	0.2%
161	Somalia	0.2%
162	South Sudan	0.2%
163	Sudan	0.2%
164	Togo	0.2%
165	Uganda	0.2%
166	United Republic of Tanzania	0.2%
167	Burkina Faso	0.2%
168	Yemen	0.2%
169	Zambia	0.2%

Showing 169 of 169 countries

Topics

#statistic-of-the-day #ai-generated #culture #creative economy #employment #labor market #arts #media #UNESCO #UIS

Data Source

This data comes from UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) (2022).

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