Taxable wages in the cultural and creative industries amounted to 50 billion ISK in 2024 and had increased by 5.6% from the previous year, when the total taxable wages were 47.5 billion ISK. In comparison, the increase in taxable wages for the whole labour force was 7.1%.
Design and architecture had the highest taxable wages at approximately 9.7 billion ISK and had increased by 9.9% from the previous year when the wages were approximately 8.8 billion ISK. Taxable wages increased in all categories, except for literature which decreased by 6.0% from the previous year. The highest proportional increase was in visual arts, which increased by 21.7% from the previous year.
Employers
In 2024, employers in creative and cultural industries were 1,725 and had increased by 57 from the previous year. Most employers were in design and architecture, 378 in total, and in film and television, 293 in total, and had remained the same since 2023. The biggest proportional increase was in visual arts, by 11.8%, or by 20 employers, and in music by 8.0%, or by 17 employers.
Employees
Employees in 2024 in cultural and creative industries were 6,871 in total and had increased by 65, or by 9.6% from the previous year. Most employees were in design and architecture, 1,093 in total, in media 884 and in film and television 780. The biggest increase in employees between 2023 and 2024 was in visual arts, both in numbers and proportionally, by 40 and 14.1%. The most probational decrease was in literature and computer games, 4.3% decrease in both categories.
Changes in employees over the past decade
Looking over a ten year period, there was a 5.1% decrease in employees from 2015, when 7,240 reported taxable wages in the cultural and creative industry.
During this period there was a major decrease in media and print, 50.9% and 44.7% respectively. However, it is worth mentioning that changes in the operating environment could explain these steep changes.
Looking past those two categories, the total employment in the cultural and creative industries increased by 19.4% over the past decade. The highest increases were in visual arts, by 64.5%, computer games by 46.6% and 42.9% in design and architecture over a ten year period. However, employment has decreased the most in advertising agencies by 13.1% and in arts education by 4.9%.
About the data
The data about taxable wages, employment and employers in cultural and creative industries can be found in the updated Statistics Iceland’s cultural indicators. The statistics are based on tax forms. More information can be found in metadata.
Statistics Iceland‘s cultural indicators are based on a special side categorisation of enterprises and organisations into cultural and creative industries, allowing for a breakdown between industries. The categorisation was developed with the needs of Icelandic users for official statistics in mind and is based on a system of categorising NACE rev. 2 economic activities either fully or partly into specific cultural and creative industries.
Those economic activities which are not fully categorised as falling within a specific cultural and creative industry are then examined and organisations within it manually categorised into cultural and creative industries. The aim is to categorise all organisations which have 3 million ISK or more in operating revenue for at least one year during the reference period, covering at least 90% of the total operating revenues within the population. Unfortunately, the cultural indicators are currently only available in Icelandic but the numbers behind them can be found in web tables.