Artist Unemployment News

The job news is not good for artists. A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts shows a higher rate of unemployment among artists compared with other professionals, and the rate would have been even higher if the discouraged artists had not left the labor force entirely.

Architects and designers, typically the professions with the highest employment rates among artists, have been hard-hit in this recession. Says the report:

As an example of how arts jobs intersect with the larger economy, consider the construction industry. Industry-wide declines, which began in 2006, have contributed to the shrinking job market for architects. While this group usually has the lowest unemployment rates among all artist occupations and all professionals, architect unemployment rates doubled, from 1.8 percent in fourth quarter 2007, to 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

But artists - with a labor force in the U.S. slightly smaller than the military - also have impacts on the economy, the NEA notes:

[A] National Governors Association report recognized that the arts directly benefit states and communities through job creation, tax revenues, attracting investments, invigorating local economies, and enhancing quality of life. There are 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations that support 5.7 million jobs and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year, according to a study by Americans for the Arts.