The cultural and creative industries are defined as those areas of practice that turn original individual creativity into social and commercial outcomes.
The creative industries draw on Western Australia’s unique identity to produce new artistic, cultural and aesthetic-functional products and services for local, national and international markets.
WA creative industries consist of creative services and cultural production industries.
Creative services industries:
Cultural production industries:
The creative industries are increasingly recognised for their vital role in supporting both economic and social development.
The creative industries is a key focus within the Diversify WA economic development framework, which aligns with the WA Government’s priorities of creating secure, quality jobs, growing and diversifying the economy and attracting investment.
The focus is on building a skilled creative workforce and leveraging cross-sector connections to deliver economic outcomes for the state.
By integrating creative industry policies and programs with broader government priorities, WA can continue to foster a thriving creative economy that contributes significantly to the state’s overall development.
The creative economy can be understood through analysis of the creative workforce. The creative economy consists of specialist creative workers and support workers employed in creative industries, as well as creative workers in other industries.
DLGSC has prepared a fact sheet on the creative economy in Western Australia based on employment and income data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2021.
Further analysis of the creative economy in Australia can be read about in ‘The Creative Economy in Australia: What Census 2021 Tells Us’ briefing papers. The 2 briefing papers are the result of a collaboration led by the University of Canberra in partnership with DLGSC alongside Creative Australia, the City of Sydney, and the South Australian Government’s Department for Industry, Innovation and Science.
The data referred to in the briefing papers can also be accessed in the interactive dashboards below:
An analysis of the Western Australian creative economy was also commissioned by DLGSC in 2019. It included data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2016 and the Labour Force Survey.