The Unemployment Rate of Art Graduates is 23.5%: Culture is not Considered as a Productive Factor

According to the public relations and the website of Khatam University, the Faculty of Architecture of Khatam University held two specialized meetings under the same title on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, with the presence of a group of experts in the field of art and economics in Imam Reza Hall (AS) of Khatam University.

The first meeting was held under the title "Creative Industries and Economy" and the speaker was Morteza Kazemi; The former deputy of art affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the second meeting was also held under the title "Art in the digital age (the role of technology and innovation in the economy of art)" and the speaker was Dr. Ehsan Roangh, a university lecturer.

Kazemi; the former deputy of art affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance at the "Creative Industries and Economy" meeting, stated that the report he would present was independent of the criticism of the economy of culture and art and was merely a pragmatic overview of a new phenomenon and movement in the field of culture and art. He gave a definition of creative industries and said: “Creative industries or creative economy include a group of economic technological activities based on the field of culture and art, whose goods and services are subject to intellectual and spiritual properties.”

​“From the 1990s onwards, with the emergence of IT and ICT technologies, it has become possible for culture and art to produce large projects, the product of which is the creative economy. This concept was proposed in 2001 as creative industries showed up, which were said to be industries that are based on the artistic elements of creativity and innovation and whose main core is literature, visual arts, performing arts, music, architecture, cultural industries, cultural heritage, handicrafts, radio and television, and computer games”, he added.

This expert in the field of economy of culture and art, stated that the creative economy was born from the connection of industry, art and advanced technologies, and then looked into the situation of creative industries in the economy of different countries and added: “Currently, on average, 3.1% of the global GDP and 6.2% of all global jobs are based on creative industries. According to the statistics related to the period after Corona, the financial turnover of the creative economy is 2669 billion dollars and its global employment rate is 60 million jobs. Naturally, Corona destroyed many jobs and also strengthened the jobs in this field (creative economy). In addition, the highest employment rate for this field is for people aged 15 to 29.”

Kazemi also mentioned that according to the forecasts, by 2028, the share of the creative economy in the world economy will increase to 3434 billion dollars and its annual compound growth rate will increase to 4.29%.

The former deputy of art affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance also said: “Asia and the Oceania currently have the largest share in the creative economy in the world, with 35 to 40 percents. The creative economy has two main components: products and services. The export of creative industries in the 10-year period from 2002 to 2022 was about 1600 billion dollars, of which the share of services was more than products. The largest exporters of creative products in 2011 were China, America, Italy, Germany and Hong Kong respectively. In the export of creative services, the United States, Ireland, Germany, China and the United Kingdom have the highest ranks, respectively.”

Kazemi went on to discuss the state of the creative economy in Iran and while mentioning several examples among the poems of great Iranian poets such as Hafez, Saadi and Molavi and the writings of historians such as Herodotus who emphasized creativity and innovation in the eyes of Iranian ancestors, he reviewed the current state of the creative economy in Iran. He said: “In the first development plan (2000-2004), the issue of culture economy was raised for the first time, and in the fourth plan (2005-2010), in Article 104, solutions for the development of culture and art economy were mentioned, but it was never implemented. In general, our governance system basically believes that culture is not productive and cannot generate wealth, and for that reason, it does not matter if cinemas, movie theatres, or newspapers are active in the country or not.”

He added: “In 2021, the United Nations announced this year as the year of the creative economy, and although we do not have statistics on the state of the creative economy, we can say with a rough guess that it is less than 1 percent. We consider culture to be a set of services, and the average share of creative industries in the basket of Iranian household expenses in 2022 was about 1.6%, which, of course, includes recreation, entertainment, and cultural services, which again have the lowest share in cultural services.”

The former deputy of art affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance added: “It has been said that in 2021, we had nearly 26,384,000 Iranian households with an average of 3.1 people, and each household spent 1.4 million tomans on culture and art, which is a total of 37,000 billion Tomans, which at the average exchange rate will be one billion and 300 million Tomans, which is only 36 percent of our GDP!”

He mentioned the state of export of cultural goods in 2015 at about 940 million dollars and said: “Since 2021, this situation has worsened and become less than 800 million dollars.”

Kazemi also mentioned the contribution of a well-known branch of art such as Iranian cinema in the creative economy and added: “Iran is among the top 20 countries in the field of film production in the world, but since Iranian cinema is an art cinema and not an industrial one, except in a few cases, we do not have a place in the world premiere. The fact that more than 1000 cities in Iran do not have cinemas and we have a total of 800 cinema halls is a shocking reality that must be accepted.”

The former deputy of art affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance also made brief remarks about the status of galleries and the contribution of visual arts and computer games in the creative economy, and said: "If the state of our culture and art is like this in terms of their contribution to the creative economy, then the reality is not how it seems to be. This is not their essence, but it is caused by a complication that originates from wrong policies.”

He also warned: “Today, the development of creative industries in Iran is not a choice but a necessity, because otherwise, the country's backwardness from the world in this field will become worse. The change in lifestyle and the need to produce content in the ubiquitous virtual space has made it impossible to avoid this leap. Several actions should be taken as soon as possible to compensate for this backwardness. It is sad that according to statistics, the unemployment rate in arts branches is 23.5%, which is the second highest among unemployed graduates.”

In the end, Kazemi mentioned the prospects of the creative economy in the country and said: “If the conditions are favorable and there is a serious will to solve this problem, we can hope that the share of creative industries in the GDP in the 10-year horizon will increase by 1.5 percent.”