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cases, half of all dancers earn less than $10,000 per year. For
these people, developing skills to achieve improved economic
circumstances and a more successful career has to be a focus
of a strategy.
While the evidence provides mixed messages (reflecting
the complexity of the type of “jobs” in the cultural sector) the
qualitative and the quantitative evidence come together to
confirm the importance of
• self-employment as a major issue to consider;
• broadening skills for many culture workers beyond
their cultural skills to achieve a more successful career
and improved employment status.
6.3 “RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION”
Examples drawn from Face of the Future provided a picture of
a sector which is not attracting people into culture-based
occupations, the initial presumption perhaps that it is not
attracting a new generation of young people into cultural
jobs. It also sensed that people were leaving the sector at a
disturbing rate.
Face of the Future distinguishes seven sub-issues in this area.
Working conditions — the sector has to continually recruit
and retain because working conditions are “far below comparable
market standards” and “the very difficult working
conditions for creators and cultural workers across the cultural
sector appear to be at the heart of the cultural sector’s
difficulty in attracting new workers and encouraging its current
workers to stay;”
Employment requirements — the
need to find workers with a cross-over
of culture-specific and “soft skills”
and to find workers with a passion for
the sector;
Instability of organizations — attributed
to the inability of the sector organizations
to achieve effective revenues
or to suffer from environmental challenges
(e.g. globalization);
Turnover and mobility — perception
that “experienced workers are leaving
the sector in large numbers” especially
within management jobs and in smaller
organizations;
Succession — the double effect of the
retirement of the baby-boomers coupled
with diminished ranks of managers in
particular leaving the sector;
Cultural managers — “a growing crisis,”
with high attrition due to working conditions,
lack of opportunity, limited
compensation, little recognition and
support, and lack of professional development
opportunities;
Acute problems facing disadvantaged
groups — recruitment and
retention concerns were stronger for
those in regions and remote areas, and
by ethno-cultural and linguistic minorities,
immigrants, the disabled, and
youth (over half the labour force.)
BUILDING ON SUCCESS — A HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR THE CULTURAL SECTOR — 2004 19