Want to work in the movie business? Move to Los Angeles.
Want to work in theater, dance, music, or publishing? Move to New York.
That might not be surprising advice, but a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics backs it up with numbers. "During the first quarter of 2006, 1 out of every 4 jobs (25.8 percent) associated with the creative arts industries in the country was located in either New York or Los Angeles," according to the report.
So what qualifies as a creative arts industry? The authors defined 27 industries as having "activities which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have the potential for wealth and job creation through generation and exploitation of intellectual property." They then compared employment and wage data for those 27 "cultural output industries" in New York and LA for the earliest and most recent figures, the first quarters of 1990 and 2006.
| Jobs dominated by Los Angeles in 2006 | % of jobs nationwide | Avg. monthly jobs | % of wages nationwide |
| Motion picture and video production | 58.7% | 113,173 | 72.9% |
| Motion picture and video distribution | 24.4 | 2,074 | 47.9 |
| Teleproduction and other postproduction services | 46.1 | 7,297 | 51.2 |
| Other motion picture and postproduction | 41.2 | 1,555 | 70.6 |
| Agents and managers for public figures | 27.7 | 4,890 | 38.8 |
| Independent managers for public figures | 21.4 | 10,170 | 53.0 |
| Jobs dominated by New York in 2006 | % of jobs nationwide | Avg. monthly jobs | % of wages nationwide |
| News syndicates | 26.0% | 2,907 | 42.7% |
| Dance companies | 26.8 | 2,287 | 43.5 |
| Periodical publishing | 19.6 | 27,910 | 42.7 |
| Record production | 24.0 | 622 | 60.0 |
| Integrated record production and distribution | 27.3 | 1,015 | 70.0 |
Over the 17-year period, the movie production industry in LA has grown 111.3 percent while jobs in theater companies and dinner theaters plummeted from 14,042 jobs on average to 1,466.
In New York, there are more jobs in most creative arts fields than in 1990, but they don't pay as well in comparison. While city-wide private wages in New York had tripled between 1990 and 2006, the percent earned by the creative arts dropped from 8 to 5.4.
Nationwide, jobs in most parts of the music industry have dropped but the number of record producers grew from 813 to 2,595. Record producers now make the most money on average out of all of the creative arts listed. Other job sectors that increased greatly are cable and other subscription programming, fine arts schools, independent managers for public figures, internet publishing and broadcasting, motion picture and video production, museums, and promoters with or without facilities.
The economic impact of the creative arts industries: New York and Los Angeles
Via Docuticker
"TriBeca alley during student film shoot" from Flickr by eugene.
