A new survey by I Lost My Gig Australia has revealed some sobering statistics about the future of Australia’s embattled music, creative and live entertainment industries amid the COVID-19 pandemic, following the planned end of the government’s JobKeeper scheme on March 28.
Compiled from 1556 respondents, the survey found that 53% of businesses surveyed expected to close when JobKeeper ended. 55% of workers in the music, creative and live entertainment fields said they were considering, or had considered, changing industries.
Those numbers echo a study published out of Victoria this week that found three in five music industry workers had considered leaving the field due to the impacts of the pandemic and subsequent restrictions.
Elsewhere in the report, 66% of creative workers said they were unsure what would happen once the JobKeeper program finished, with the same number of respondents also claiming they’d received no targeted industry support outside of JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments. Only 2% of business respondents said they had been able to access dedicated federal government funding.
The report comes just days after thousands of artists and music industry workers signed an open letter calling on the Australian government to either extend the JobKeeper scheme or develop a target, industry-specific wage subsidy for those in the industry. Signatories included Paul Kelly, Courtney Barnett, Bernard Fanning, Laneway Festival, Missy Higgins, Archie Roach and more.
You can read I Lost My Gig’s report here.
