Culture Grows Broadly – Not in Full-Time Jobs
Switzerland has over 67,000 cultural businesses. This boom is driven by increasingly smaller companies, much part-time work, and above-average self-employment.
The Swiss cultural sector is growing – primarily in the form of new, small businesses. Between 2011 and 2022, their number increased by 22.7 percent to 67,313. Employment rose by only 6 percent in the same period, and by just 2 percent when measured in full-time equivalents. The cultural business of the future is statistically more often a micro-enterprise than a growing employer.
This contradicts the common short version, which claims that employment in culture has decreased overall. The Federal Statistical Office (BFS) reports growth – but at a much slower pace than that of companies. While a cultural business employed an average of 4.1 people or 2.9 full-time equivalents in 2011, this figure dropped to 3.6 people or 2.4 full-time equivalents in 2022.
Many Start-ups, but a Lower Survival Rate
The cultural sector is keen on founding new businesses. In 2022, the rate of newly established companies was 9.4 percent, compared to 7.4 percent in the economy as a whole. At the same time, new cultural businesses survive less often. This is the flip side of an industry where projects can be built with little start-up capital, but also with thin financial reserves.
Therefore, the large number of firms should not be confused with an equally large number of stable employers. A studio, a small design office, an independent theatre production, or a one-person publishing house each appear as companies. They can be artistically successful without creating multiple full-time positions.
Employment Grows Slower Than the Overall Economy
A comparison with the entire Swiss economy sharpens the picture. There, the number of companies increased by 13.4 percent from 2011 to 2022, less sharply than in culture. However, employment and full-time equivalents each rose by about 14 percent – significantly more robustly than in the cultural sector. Culture is thus growing particularly broadly, not in operational depth.
According to the BFS, around 295,000 people worked in cultural fields in 2024. This number was 3.5 percent higher than in the previous year. Their working reality nevertheless clearly differs from the average: 51.9 percent were employed part-time, compared to 38.4 percent of all employed persons. 14.7 percent had more than one job; in the overall economy, it was 8 percent. 27.7 percent were self-employed, almost twice as many as the total of 14.1 percent.
A High Level of Education Does Not Automatically Protect Against Lower Incomes
58.8 percent of cultural workers hold a tertiary degree. Across the entire labour market, this figure is 43.8 percent. Nevertheless, the median gross annual salary in 2024 was 70,000 Swiss francs, compared to 74,100 Swiss francs for all employed persons. The BFS explicitly states that self-employed individuals are missing from this salary comparison. Precisely because they are strongly represented in culture, this figure only incompletely describes the economic situation of the industry.
The data does not allow for a blanket diagnosis of precarity. Part-time work can be a choice, self-employment can be entrepreneurially successful, and multiple jobs can be creatively desired. However, these same forms can also mean irregular incomes, unpaid preliminary work, and gaps in social security. The crucial factor is not the contract type alone, but whether it is voluntary, adequately paid, and sustainably viable.
"Culture" Does Not Exist Economically
Even within the sector, trends are contradictory. Since 2010, employment in the books and press sector has fallen by 40.5 percent. In contrast, it rose by 92.1 percent in museums, historical sites, and similar institutions. Digitalisation, public funding, demand, and business models affect the individual segments very differently.
Overall, the cultural sector generated a gross value added of 16.3 billion Swiss francs in 2022, approximately 2.1 percent of the gross domestic product. It is thus not a marginal economic phenomenon. However, its contribution is distributed among many small units and forms of work that classic company and wage statistics only partially capture.
The Decisive Question Lies Beyond the Number of Companies
For cultural policy, therefore, it is not enough to count business start-ups. More meaningful would be how many businesses still exist after five years, what incomes they enable, and whether projects develop into reliable career paths. Funding programmes, pension solutions, and social insurances must take into account a reality where people can be employed, self-employed, and work for multiple clients simultaneously.
Switzerland does not lack cultural initiative. The 67,313 businesses demonstrate the opposite. The open question is how more viable employment can emerge from this broad creativity – without forcing its diversity into the model of a large, standard enterprise.
