Canada’s Artists – A Snapshot

A new study measures Canada’s arts workforce. “Toronto artists on average earned $34,100 a year. That’s almost $11,000 more than the national average for artists and almost $15,000 more that what artists in St. John’s get — but 11 per cent less than the average earnings for Toronto’s total labour force. Moreover, dancers in Toronto were found to earn on average less than $20,000 a year. In 2001 — the last year a full, nationwide census was completed — artists represented 0.8 per cent of Canada’s working population. But Vancouver had 7,250 artists in its total labour force of just over 307,000; at 2.4 per cent, that was the highest concentration of arts workers in the country.”