Statistics on Cultural Industries - International Trade Centre

population engaged in it. The economy of Bhutan is characterized by the predominance of selfemployment,and the number of people working for wages is relatively small. The self-employedare working on their own land, or working in small cottage industries, often at home.The need to create opportunities for paid work is underlined by the findings that 36 percent of those“employed” are in fact unpaid family workers and that a significant proportion of the agriculturallabour force in rural areas are underemployed. For more detailed information on the employmentsituation see for example Table 4.3 (Total Employed Persons by Employment Status and EconomicActivity, Bhutan 2004) in the Statistical Yearbook of Bhutan 2005.Dramatic structural changes are underway, however. While agriculture in 1980 accounted for overhalf of total GDP, it is now (2004) only about a quarter of GDP. By contrast, light and heavy industry’sshare of GDP increased from 14 percent in 1980 to 45 percent in 2004. The service sector hasremained relatively stable with a share of around 30 percent of GDP throughout the period.The lack of opportunities and productivity improvement in the agriculture sector puts increasingpressure on the urban centres. An estimated two thirds of the urban population are now migrantsfrom rural areas, looking for jobs.The situation may look even more challenging when the overall poverty figure is broken down toreflect regional disparities:The main contrast is between urban areas, where the poverty rate is only 4 percent and the ruralareas where it is 38 percent (four-fifths of the population live in rural areas)... The poverty rateincreases markedly moving across the country from west to east... while the poverty rate in theWestern region is 19 percent, it increases to 30 percent in the Central region and to half of thepopulation (49 percent) in the Eastern region. <strong>Statistics</strong> on Cultural IndustriesFramework for the Elaboration of National Data Capacity Building ProjectsThe changing trends in the economy and the opportunities and challenges posed by thesechanges are summarized in UN Bhutan Common Country Assessment 2005:Though an important source of national revenue, the hydropower sector is not a major source foremployment generation... Hence the contribution of the power sector lies mainly in facilitating ruralelectrification, boosting national revenue and playing a catalytic role in supporting certain powerintensive industries. This stimulus has, however, largely bypassed the agricultural sector and onlymarginally benefited manufacturing...In the past, most young graduates were absorbed into either further education or into employment,mainly within the civil service. However, the recent rapid growth in numbers of educated graduateshas not been matched by a comparable growth in employment opportunities. A ceiling has beenplaced on the civil service and private sector employment opportunities are limited. The nationalunemployment rate increased from 1.8 percent in 2003 to 2.5 percent in 2004 with females facinggreater unemployment rates than their male counterparts. Youth constitute a disproportionatelylarge segment of the unemployed. Although the rates are not alarming by international standards,unemployment of educated people is a new phenomenon in Bhutan with high social consequencesin a small society. The Jodhpur Consensus called attention to the fact that creativity and creative or cultural industrieshold significant potential for local economic growth and cultural industries are generally perceivedas a key to job generation and economic growth in Bhutan. Importantly, the Jodhpur Consensusunderlined that the development of cultural industries does not necessarily have to be parallel to. UN Bhutan Common Country Assessment 2005, draft text, Sept. 16, 2005, (p. 21).. UN Bhutan Common Country Assessment 2005, draft text, Sept. 16, 2005, (p. 5).68