The salaried workforce in the cultural sector 2009 : flexibility and diversification [CC-2012-2]

In 2009, 26 million people were paid for at least one hour’s work in France, and of these, 697,000 worked in the cultural sector for a total of 557 million hours, thereby averaging an annual 800 hours per employee. Salaried workers in the cultural sector (which covers around three quarters of those working within the sector) tend to be very flexible: we typically see short working periods and irregular pay, plus frequent recourse to diversification. The average salaried worker is young and male with the majority working in the Île-de-France area. The various cultural sector activities have been classified into five major areas, based on similarity of activities and the form the work takes (contract duration, whether permanent or temporary, etc.). This analysis looks at the general characteristics of salaried work in 2009 for each of the following areas: entertainment, publishing, architecture and cultural heritage, arts and leisure teaching and the visual arts.