National culture indicators, second quarter 2021
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Released: 2021-10-04
Real gross domestic product (GDP) for the culture and sport sectors in Canada increased 1.6% to $13.3 billion in the second quarter, marking four consecutive quarterly increases following a sharp decline in the second quarter of 2020. By comparison, real GDP for the total economy edged down 0.3% during the same period. Although total economy GDP contracted, household spending on recreational and culture services was up during the quarter, bolstering the growth in culture and sport GDP.
On a nominal basis, GDP for the culture and sport sectors was up 1.7% to $14.9 billion. The total number of jobs supporting culture and sport increased 1.3% to over 682,000.
Culture and sport nominal GDP in Canada increases for the fourth consecutive quarter
Nominal GDP for culture was up 1.4% to $13.5 billion in the second quarter, driven by increases in the written and published works (+2.8%) and visual and applied arts (+2.6%) domains. Meanwhile, there were declines in heritage and libraries (-2.1%), live performance (-1.8%) and sound recording (-2.8%), offsetting some of the overall culture growth. Despite these decreases, these domains fared quite well in comparison with the second quarter of 2020, when they experienced record level declines; however, both live performance and heritage and libraries remain well below pre-pandemic levels seen during the last quarter of 2019.
Nominal GDP for sport increased 4.2% (+$54.9 million) to $1.4 billion, with most of the gain seen in the organized sport subdomain.
Chart 1
Culture and sport nominal gross domestic product, quarterly
Employment in Canada's culture and sport sectors up in the second quarter
During the second quarter, culture jobs increased 0.8% to 606,390 jobs with employment up for six of the nine culture domains.
Partially offsetting those increases were declines in the live performance (-5.5% or -2,139) and heritage and libraries (-3.9% or -582) domains. Typically, employment would be up in these domains during the second quarter of a typical year, with people attending museums, live concerts and events, for example. However, with the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic occurring during the second quarter and shutdowns remaining in many provinces, employment contracted as both domains were impacted by pandemic protocols.
Sport jobs increased 5.5% to 76,028 in the second quarter, led by increases in the organized sport sub-domain. In addition to four National Hockey League teams playing playoffs games in the quarter, including the Montréal Canadiens advancing to the Stanley Cup finals in front of a very limited number of fans, it is likely that teams in professional summer sports leagues were staffing up in anticipation of the return of games in front of fans in partially full stadiums. This was in stark contrast with the same quarter last year, in which total sport jobs contracted by more than one-quarter (-26.8%), with nearly all the decline coming from the organized sport sub-domain.
Chart 2
Change in jobs by culture domain, second quarter of 2021
Note to readers
The National Culture Indicators are an extension of the Provincial and Territorial Culture Satellite Account and the Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators.
Data
Data are available for gross domestic product (GDP) in both nominal, basic prices and constant prices (2012 prices).
Data on real GDP (corrected for prices changes) are provided as a means to examine economic growth within culture and sport, as well as comparisons with other sectors.
Unless otherwise stated, GDP in this release refers to nominal GDP, at basic prices.
Growth rates in this release are represented as the percentage change in the series from one quarter to the next.
Data have been seasonally adjusted. All data are based on the product perspective.
Definitions
Culture GDP is the economic value added associated with culture activities. This is the value added related to the production of culture goods and services across the economy, regardless of the producing industry.
Culture jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of culture goods and services.
Sport GDP is the economic value added associated with sport activities. This is the value added related to the production of sport goods and services across the economy, regardless of the producing industry.
Sport jobs are the number of jobs that are related to the production of sport goods and services.
Revisions
Data for the second quarter of 2021 have been released along with revised data for the first quarter of 2021.
Products
The Economic accounts statistics portal, accessible from the Subjects module of our website, features an up-to-date portrait of national and provincial economies and their structure.
The Latest Developments in the Canadian Economic Accounts (13-605-X) is available.
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
Contact information
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