Cultural Human Resources Council has a good summary of studies by Statistics Canada on the impact and contribution of the cultural sector.
Canadian Framework for Culture Statistics provides the definitions as to what is considered the cultural sector and has some interesting stuff on how they think culture works. Strangely they don’t say much about digital culture, it is woven into other industries.
Economic Contribution of Culture in Canada has the statistics showing a higher growth rate in employment in the culture sector. The “Culture sector employment grew faster than overall Canadian employment
in most years”. Also noteworthy is that written media are by far the largest area of employment though festivals have seen significant growth. Another interesting statistic is that over a quarter of all people employed in the cultural sector are self-employed, which is much higher than average. This is because so much work in the film industry, for example is project based.
There is a related report look at provincial distribution and one about Ontario. Ontario it turns out has about 42% of Canada’s cultural jobs, a significant percentage of all the cultural jobs.
All the reports on this area are at Publications – Guide to Culture Statistics | 87-008-GIE.
These statistics would seem to indicate that the cultural sector is an important part of the economy, that it has seen higher growth in employment than other sectors, and that it has a higher percentage of self-employed people.
Statistics Canada also has a quarterly Focus on Culture for which you have to pay for more recent issues.
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