The cultural and creative industries are defined as those areas of practice that turn original individual creativity into social and commercial outcomes.
They draw on Western Australia’s unique identity to produce new artistic, cultural and aesthetic-functional products and services for local, national and international markets.
The creative economy can be understood through analysis of the creative workforce. The creative economy consists of specialist creative workers and support workers employed in creative industries, as well as creative workers in other industries.
DLGSC has prepared a fact sheet on the creative economy in Western Australia based on employment and income data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2021.
Further analysis of the creative economy in Australia can be read about in ‘The Creative Economy in Australia: What Census 2021 Tells Us’ briefing papers. The 2 briefing papers are the result of a collaboration led by the University of Canberra in partnership with DLGSC alongside Creative Australia, the City of Sydney, and the South Australian Government’s Department for Industry, Innovation and Science.
The data referred to in the briefing papers can also be accessed in the interactive dashboards below:
An analysis of the Western Australian creative economy was also commissioned by DLGSC in 2019. It included data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2016 and the Labour Force Survey.