Hawaii's Creative Industries

 

Hawaii’s Creative Industries Metrics

The Creative Industries Division (CID) and DBEDT’s Research and Economic Analysis Division have tracked metrics in 13 key sectors of Hawaii’s Creative Economy. These metrics have provided a baseline for tracking the performance of the State’s Creative Clusters, identified emerging, declining and transitioning sectors of the economy, and guided CID’s programmatic direction to support the growth of Hawaii’s Creative Economy.

Performance Metrics for Hawaii’s Creative Economy

• 49,403 jobs representing entrepreneurs = 5.9% of the State’s civilian jobs

• 3,525 businesses

• 11.1% job growth rate since 2004 < 11.5% State job growth rate

• $46,662 average annual earnings < $51,875 State average annual earnings

• $3.3 Billion in GDP in 2014 = 4.2% of the State’s total GDP

Industry Sector Performance

Evaluation of these metrics have identified that the highest performing sectors of Hawaii’s Creative Economy are in the areas of Cultural Activities, Music,  Business Consulting, and Design Services. Showing steady growth are the sectors of Art Education, Engineering and Research & Development, Marketing, Photography & Related, and Computer and Digital Media Products.

The high performing sectors identified above have grown jobs since 2004 and more importantly, have outperformed the same industries nationally, suggesting that these sectors are gaining in competitiveness and are candidates for becoming economic drivers in Hawaii’s future.

Next Steps

The performance of Hawaii’s Creative economy shows the vibrancy of specific sectors, which, coupled with the export of content and products, will position the State to be a leader in the global creative economy movement through the establishment of:

• Programs and strategic partnerships which expand creative exports across multiple platforms
• Creative Lab program expansion to accelerate export capacity of creative/tech companies
• Cross platform collaborations with film, music, design, tech and new media industries to advance sector growth
• Policies to support creative media infrastructure development
• Statutory programs which support film industry development