The economy, which powers industries like entertainment, media, fashion and visual arts in California, has weathered the pandemic and overall recovered better than the broader economy from the COVID-related recession, according to new analysis released today by the UCR School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development.
The Shock and Roll: California’s Creative Economy from 2015-2021 study examines trends in the state’s creative industries before, during and after the pandemic recession and finds that the creative industries have added, and appear to have added, a total of 70,064 jobs since 2015 return to pre-pandemic peaks in 2019. Additionally, the creative industries workforce in California grew by 8% during the study period, significantly faster than overall employment.
Change in California Creative Industries Employment by Major Subsectors: 2015-2021. (UCR Center for Economic Forecasting)
Wage growth was even more impressive. On average, wages per worker in California’s creative industries have increased by a spectacular 40% since 2015. Wages among creative workers were already relatively high at 1.8 times the average California worker wage in 2015, but by 2021 the average worker wage in the creative industries was 2.35 times higher. In fact, wages in the creative industries started higher and accelerated during the pandemic, even exceeding today’s historical inflation.
“California is a global epicenter of the creative economy, and its industries are an engine of growth for the state and its workers,” said Patrick Adler, research manager at the Center for Economic Forecasting and one of the report’s authors. “By looking at the conditions and trends that were underway before the pandemic, as well as the changes since then, we can put the COVID shock into context. Our key finding is that the disruption of 2020 has not derailed the creative industries from their previous achievements.”
The report’s topline analysis contains a critical caveat: Many different sectors, producing very different types of products, make up the creative industries. The results show that both longer-term performance and the recent recovery from the pandemic vary significantly across sectors, with some rising and others falling.
The media sector, which includes digital publishing, is the sector that has been instrumental in shaping the growth of the creative industries over the period 2015-2021. Media currently accounts for 31.2% of all creative industries employees in the country and accounts for more than half (53.3%) of all creative industries wages. The digital publishing industries alone have added 125,885 jobs since 2015, bucking macro trends and adding 12,216 jobs during the pandemic alone.
The architecture and related services sector is the only other major creative sector to have more jobs in 2021 than in 2015; all others have lost their jobs since 2015. Not surprisingly, visual arts and performance have been hardest hit by the pandemic given health-related restrictions on group activities, and fashion stands out as the one sector that has seen an almost steady decline in employment since 2015.
The analysis is part of the Center for Economic Forecasting’s ongoing research on California’s creative industries, their industries and workforce. Amid fears of the pandemic and its economic impact, Adler and his co-authors hope that providing clear diagnoses well before, during and after the COVID-19 crisis will support long-term business and workforce development efforts at the company will influence the creative industries.
“There’s an important, broader context that tells us that certain industries were going one way or the other before the pandemic,” Adler said. “State leaders should be excited about the long-term momentum in digital publishing and be more concerned about the decline in the entertainment and creative industries.”
The report is accompanied by an online appendix containing a variety of graphs, figures and maps that provide additional detailed information.
The full analysis can be found here. You can find the attachment here. This report was authored by Adler, Research Associate Andrew Yu, and Chief Research Associate Brady Allardice. Further contributions by research associate Kailei Lin.
Cover photo: hugolacasse/Getty Images
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