Methodology - Workers and wages in culture
The data on employees in cultural organisations and their wages are drawn from the Satellite Account of Culture, which is compiled in cooperation between the CZSO and the National Information and Consulting Centre for Culture (NIPOS), in accordance with a resolution of the Government of the Czech Republic.
The data for employees in the cultural sector reflect the annual average number of employees in each month and are converted into full-time equivalents for better comparability. However, this indicator is limited to employees only and does not include data on self-employed and contract workers. The information comes from the data collected in the annual NIPOS survey and from CZSO’ Structural Business Statistics, which monitors the economic activities of legal and natural persons according to the code of the reported predominant economic activity using the CZ-NACE sectoral classification.
In accordance with the culture definition within the EU ESSnet Culture project, culture (and employees in cultural organisations) is divided into the following three sectors and eight areas of culture:
Sectors of culture
Traditional and the arts sector
Audiovisual and the media sector
Creative sector (design, architecture and advertising)
Cultural area
Cultural heritage
Performing arts
Visual arts including arts crafts and design
Periodicals and non-periodicals
Audiovisual and interactive media
Architecture
Advertising
Art education
In addition to the sectors and areas of culture mentioned above, employees of the organisations belonging to the group Administration and support of cultural activities are also included.
Cultural heritage includes museums, galleries, castles, chateaux and other monuments accessible to visitors for an admission fee, including their collections. Cultural heritage also includes archives and libraries, as well as conservation areas, archeological sites and their corresponding activities.
Performing art includes all kinds of organized live cultural events by professionals and amateurs, such as theatre, dance, opera, musicals and others. This also includes events that occur locally, e.g. festivals and traditions maintained by the local community as well as dance, cabaret and circus performances.
Visual arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, art crafts, photography, and specialized design services.
Audiovisual and interactive media include radio and television broadcasting, music, film, video and computer games (in the production, distribution, lending and projection phases) and interactive media.
The source of data on the total number of people working in culture is Labour Force Sample Survey (LFSS) by the CZSO. The survey not only asks respondents what economic area they work in (according to the CZ-NACE classification of economic activities), but also monitors what specific profession they perform (according to the CZ-ISCO Classification of Occupations). Thus, not only do we know whether the respondent works in an organisation whose predominant economic activity falls within the cultural sector (e.g. he/she is employed in a theatre), but also what specific occupation he/she performs there (e.g. actor). To ensure higher reliability and to eliminate significant year-to-year fluctuations in the values for this group of employees, the data in this table are presented as three-year moving averages (i.e. e.g. the value for 2021 is calculated as the average of the values for 2020, 2021, 2021).
Among those working in culture (natural persons) within of the LFSS are included not only persons working as employees under an employment contract or under agreements for the performance of work or work activity, but also entrepreneurs (self-employed persons, artists practicing free professions under the Copyright Act, sole traders, …). It also covers not only those working in cultural organisations, but also persons performing occupations of the cultural nature in an organisation with another predominant activity (e.g. designers in the automotive industry).
The list of cultural occupations according to the CZ-ISCO classification is based on EUROSTAT recommendations within the ESSnet Culture project.