In addition to cultural values, culture also creates economic value, jobs and generates income. This is what the cultural economy statistics are about.
The definition of the cultural economy used here is based on Eurostat recommendations. It is founded on a traditional understanding of culture, extended to sectors in which creativity plays a key role (e.g., architecture, video games, crafts and advertising). Unlike the 'creative economy' which also includes IT and software in general as well as marketing, the focus here is on culture in the narrower sense of the term.
The cultural economy statistics are synthesis statistics based on existing FSO surveys, examining the topic from two perspectives:
- Cultural enterprises in the cultural sector with their workplaces and employment (jobs). The results here are based on the structural business statistics (STATENT), the statistics on business demography (UDEMO) and the production and value added statistics (WS).
- Cultural workers in the broadest sense, i.e., people (including the self-employed) who mainly work in the cultural sector plus those who pursue a cultural profession as their main job outside the cultural sector. The sources used here are the Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS), the Swiss Earnings Structure Survey (ESS) and the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC).
