Cultural and Creative Industries in Germany – Gross Value Added and Number of Core Employees Rises Significantly

In 2017, the cultural and creative industries in Germany once again experienced a significant increase in the number of core employees, which rose to a total of 1.159 million. Gross value added also developed positively, reaching 102.4 billion euros last year. The cultural and creative industries were able to match the high levels achieved in the previous year with respect to both sales and the number of companies. These are some of the findings of the 2018 Monitoring Report on the state of cultural and creative industries in Germany compiled on an annual basis by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, and Fraunhofer ISI on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Taking both self-employed workers and employees liable to social security contributions into account, overall employment in the German cultural and creative industries rose to a total of 1,157,683 individuals in 2017. This number has risen by 2.2 per cent compared to 2016, which corresponds to an increase of around 38,000 employees. “This increase is largely the result of the significant rise in the amount of employment subject to social security contributions, and only to a small extent to a growth in the number of self-employed workers,” explains Dr. Jörg Ohnemus, deputy head of the ZEW Research Department “Digital Economy”. With 4.3 per cent, the rise in the number of employees liable to social security contributions was significantly higher than corresponding employment growth in the overall economy (2.3 per cent).

After having already experienced a marked increase in the previous year, gross value added once again recorded a significant increase in 2017, reaching a level of 102.4 billion euros (up 2.0 per cent compared to 2016). “This is already the eighth year in a row with a positive value-added development in the cultural and creative industries,” comments Jörg Ohnemus. Starting from 74.2 million euros in 2009, value added in the cultural and creative industries has since grown by almost 30 billion euros. In 2017 around 27 per cent of gross value added was generated in the software and games sub-market. Other important sub-markets are the advertising and media markets as well as the design industry, all of which recorded gross value added of more than ten billion euros.

Majority of companies are outsourcing tasks to external service providers

Turnover and the number of companies in the German cultural and creative industries remained largely unchanged in 2017. Total turnover amounted to 158.6 billion euros, which is slightly below the sales level of the record year 2016 (158.8 billion euros). Compared to 2009, however, figures increased by around 18 per cent. The total number of companies rose by 0.1 per cent to 254,700 companies in 2017, which means that the cultural and creative industries currently accounts for 7.7 per cent of all companies in Germany.

This year’s Monitoring Report on the cultural and creative industries also focuses on the importance of cultural and creative services for industrial companies. To this end, ZEW conducted two representative surveys among companies in the cultural and creative industries as well as among companies in the manufacturing industry. Around 79 per cent of the surveyed companies stated to have outsourced tasks to cultural and creative service providers within the last three years. The greatest share of services were outsourced to graphic and product design companies, followed by advertising service providers and software programming companies. The companies named excessively high costs as well as the uncertainty with regard to the concrete benefits of creative services as impeding factors for outsourcing such services. At the same time, around 42 per cent of companies in the manufacturing industry stated to have their own creative departments, which is why they make no or only minor use of external services.

For further information please contact

Dr. Jörg Ohnemus, Phone +49 (0)621-1235-354, E-mail joerg.ohnemus@zew.de