Workers in the arts and entertainment sector

Workers in the arts and entertainment sector (AES)^[1] often lack effective access to social protection. The insufficient extent of coverage in many countries stems from the deficiency of social protection schemes to address and accommodate the specificities of AES work. These include diverse forms of employment, including self-employment, temporary or open-ended, part-time or full-time employment relationships with one or more employers, or a combination thereof. Further AES work is often characterized by irregular incomes and a reliance on the demand of the customer or audience and the season and therefore an intermittent nature of work often combined with a geographically, sometimes international mobility. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit AES workers hard and has manifested and aggravated these already existing inequalities and gaps. 

To address these insufficiencies, States must overcome certain challenges in extending social protection. These include the legal exclusion of AES workers from social protection schemes, which are often limited to certain categories of employees and preclude self-employed or part-time and short-time workers. In addition, the often-exercised contributory scheme of monthly payment contrasts to the irregular and varying income of AES workers. Apart from the legal framework, AES workers are often de facto excluded due to the diversity and fluidity of employment relationships resulting in sporadic contribution or fragmented coverage, diverse types of remuneration or unconsidered und not remunerated hidden working time. Lastly, all of these specificities of AES work result in an uneven union representation that prevents AES workers from collective action on their behalf. 

States’ responses and good practices to these challenges are manifold including adapting social protection systems and relying on a variety of financing mechanisms, administrative arrangements and simplification, and improving the portability of social security benefits between employment statuses and countries (for more information see resources below).  

Nevertheless, the extension of social protection to AES workers remains challenging. The pandemic revealed the need for flexible and innovative contributory and non-contributory schemes to accommodate AES workers. However, States have the unique opportunity to build upon the temporary measures adopted during the COVID-19 crisis and some countries have already shown that extending social protection to the AES is possible. 

^[1] According to the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Rev. 4 (2008), creative, arts and entertainment activities include the operation of facilities and provision of services to meet the cultural and entertainment interests of their customers. This includes the production and promotion of, and participation in, live performances, events or exhibits intended for public viewing; the provision of artistic, creative or technical skills for the production of artistic products and live performances.  

Photo credit: “Accordionist” International Labour Organization via Flickr