6273.0 - Employment in Culture, Australia, 2006 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 27/02/2008   
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MEDIA RELEASE

February 27, 2007
Embargoed 11.30 am (AEDT)
13/2008
Snapshot of people who work in Culture: ABS

More men (55%) than women (45%) were employed in cultural occupations as their main job, according to further analysis of the 2006 Census released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

More than 90% of all broadcasting transmitter operators, camera operators, light and sound technicians and television equipment operators were men. In comparison around 85% of all library and archive workers were women.

Cultural occupations
Approximately 285,000 people (aged 15 years and over) worked in a cultural occupation as their main job in 2006. However around two-fifths (45%) of these people were not employed in the cultural industry. The largest number of cultural workers were employed as graphic designers, ministers of religion and architects (see media note below).

Employment in cultural occupations has increased by 7% between 2001 and 2006. There were large increases in the number of graphic designers, architects and media producers, while the numbers of printing tradespeople had the largest decrease.

The median gross weekly income for people working in a cultural occupation as their main job was $741, compared with $718 for all employed people.

Cultural industry
While around 346,000 people worked in the cultural industry as their main job, more than half of these (55%) worked in a non-cultural occupation (e.g. a cleaner employed in a museum) at the time of the 2006 Census.
    • The creative artists industry, the arts education industry and the library and archives industry had the highest concentrations of people who worked in cultural occupations.
    • The newspaper and book retailing industry and the video and other electronic media rental industry had the most people employed who worked in a non-cultural occupation.
    • The two largest cultural industries were the printing industry and the architectural services industry.
    • The median gross weekly income for people working in a cultural industry as their main job was $688, compared with $718 for all employed people.

Further details on the characteristics of those employed in cultural occupations and industries, including age, birthplace, and hours worked, can be found in Employment in Culture, Australia, 2006 (cat. no. 6273.0) from this website.

Media note: The Australian Culture and Leisure Classifications (cat. no. 4902.0) has been used to identify arts, heritage and other culture occupations and industries in this publication.