Indiana’s creative industries have lost much of the ground they gained since 2005, according to a recent survey by
Americans for the Arts.
The Washington, D.C., group says the state had 9,950 arts-related businesses last year, a five-year low and down 3.9 percent
from 2008.
Arts-related job losses, which came in big waves in 2008, continued last year as well. The survey found 48,887 people employed
at not-for-profit institutions such as museums and symphonies, as well as in film, architecture and advertising. That number
was down 4 percent from 2008.
Indiana Arts Commission Executive Director Lewis Ricci noted in a prepared statement that the state’s creative-industry
employment had increased by more than 6,000 jobs from 2005 to 2007.
“Yet in just two years’ time, almost 5,000 Hoosiers have lost their arts-related jobs and the salaries that went
with them,” he said.
At the national level, Americans for the Arts finds that creative businesses number 668,267, or 4 percent of all U.S. businesses,
and employ 2.9 million people.
The national arts research project combines Dun & Bradstreet data from January and a geo-economic analysis to map the
location of arts-related businesses in six major fields: museums/collections, performing arts, visual/photographic arts, film/radio/television,
design/publishing and art schools/services.
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