A creative economy grew, albeit timidly, at the beginning of the pandemic, and the technology sector stood out among the other segments analyzed, such as consumption (design, architecture, fashion, advertising and marketing), media (editorial and audiovisual) and culture (heritage and arts, music, performing arts and cultural expressions).
In 2020, the creative industry generated 935 thousand jobs, 11.7% more than in 2017 — but an increase of just 1.8% compared to 2019, points out the Mapping the Creative Economy 2022, prepared by Firjan (Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro).
This balance points out that the areas of consumption and technology (which includes research and development, biotechnology and information technology) created jobs, while the culture and media sectors retreated.
Together, the areas of consumption and technology account for 85% of creative industry jobs. Between 2017 and 2020, the increase in employment contracts was 20% in consumption and 12.8% in technology — with emphasis on the IT (18.5%) and biotechnology (22.7%) segments.
According to the mapping, the activities that opened the most new vacancies in technology were Bioengineering (+426.1%), Biomedicine (+78.3%), Engineering in the area of ICT – Information and Communication Technology (+26.4%), Information technology management (+21.2%) and Programming (+15.8%).
“The Covid-19 health emergency reinforces these vectors in two ways: on the one hand, it increases the demand for digitalization (home office, virtual meetings, cloud systems) and, on the other, it sheds light on sectors linked to research in medicine and in public health”, points out the document.
The size of the Creative GDP
Firjan estimates that the Creative GDP reached R$ 217.4 billion in 2020. As a result, the creative economy now represents 2.9% of the Brazilian GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the highest value observed since the beginning of the series, in 2004. This participation is equal to that of civil construction and exceeds that of the mineral extraction sector.
In relation to 2019, creative GDP fell by 0.8%, but had a smaller drop than the country's GDP (-3.6%). “The economic performance of the creative industry has been better than that observed for the economy as a whole. Even in the face of the 2020 global economic crisis, there is an increase in the participation of the creative industry in Brazilian GDP, which denotes the resilience, on average, of this sector”, reports the mapping.
The study carried out by Firjan shows that, in general, salaries in the creative economy (R$ 6,900) are 2.4 times higher than the market average (R$ 2,900). Despite being higher, remuneration in most segments decreased compared to 2017. “Between 2017 and 2019 there was a reduction in remuneration in all creative areas and in 11 of the 13 segments. This reinforces that there is indeed a tendency to reduce income”, highlights Firjan.
In the technology sector, the fall in wages was 11.3%, and the average was R$ 9,548. In this area, the best paid professionals are geologists and geophysicists (R$ 16,100), research and development managers and the like (R$ 14,600) and general researchers in biotechnology (R$ 12,000).
The 10 trending creative professions
The survey also shows which professions generated the most jobs between 2017 and 2020:
- Business analysts (Advertising and Marketing)
- Market research analysts (Advertising and Marketing)
- Programmers/Developers (TIC)
- Biomedical (Biotechnology)
- Visual Merchandisers (Advertising and marketing)
- Information technology (ICT) managers
- Designers
- General researchers (R&D)
- Marketing managers (Advertising and Marketing)
- R&D engineers (R&D)
Retraction in culture and media
The mapping also shows that the areas of culture and media experienced an economic downturn between 2017 and 2019. The first was impacted both by the pandemic and by changes in cultural incentive laws. The sector, which had experienced an increase in the number of jobs between 2017 and 2019, saw a considerable drop between 2019 and 2020: more than 8 thousand vacancies closed.
In the media, the decline has been constant. In 2017, the segment had 95.5 thousand jobs; in 2019, there were 92.5 thousand, and in the first year of the pandemic the number fell to 85.3 thousand — a decrease of 10.7% in this entire period.
“The rise of new communication and media technologies, as well as different forms of content dissemination, has caused structural changes in the occupational distribution of professionals working in the area”, explains Firjan.
