Human resources

Rising energy and food costs are severely impacting the viability of writing as a career, a new survey has found.

The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) surveyed more than 250 writers, among whom 55% cited the cost of living as “impacting on their ability to sustain a writing career, severely impacting livelihoods and the cultural industries which depend upon their skills”.

Writers across TV, film, theatre, audio, books and videogames responded to the survey, with 67% stating that they had to rely on savings in order to manage day-to-day expenditure and 37% saying they were forced to rely on their partners’ earnings.

More than 70% of those surveyed had earned £18,000 or less for their writing work in the last financial year.

Over 80% described themselves as freelance writers, highlighting the precarious nature of self-employment for the screenwriters, playwrights, authors, audio dramatists and videogames writers represented by the union.

“The UK faces a [serious] loss of writing talent and this risks pulling the rug from under our world-beating cultural industries, which contribute over £100bn to our economy and enjoy an enviable global profile,” said Ellie Peers, WGGB General Secretary.

“We will be working with our industry partners to address the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on writers, we will continue to campaign and lobby and we will defend our members against poor practice wherever we find it.” 

Problems reported by survey respondents including having less time to work as a writer or apply for funding and development schemes, an industry-wide dearth of opportunity, real wages failing to keep pace with inflation, late payments, shrinking production budgets and reduced audience sizes. 

Many also expressed anxiety about how the cost-of-living crisis would affect the creative industries, fearing that shrinking demand might force organisations to close.
 

A museum in Wakefield was closed for several days last week after staff went on strike over pay.

Museums + Heritage Advisor reports that union members at the National Coal Mining Museum went on strike last Wednesday (26 October), with the industrial action concluded on Sunday (30 October).

Unison’s Wakefield branch secretary Sam Greenwood said 94.4% of members, on a turnout of 87.8%, had voted in favour of action.

“Last week we attended what we believed would be pay negotiations with the employer but museum representatives merely restated that pay offer that had previously been made and stated they were not prepared to improve upon it," he said.

“Inflation is currently at 10 per cent and the museum’s offer is less than half of that. Members don’t want to go on strike but the museum is leaving them with no choice.”
 

University of the Arts London (UAL) says its new parental pay and leave policy is sector leading.

The new policy, introduced at the start of October, offers an equal package of 26 weeks of full maternity or paternity pay to staff irrespective of gender, sexual orientation or how people become parents.

The institution has also reduced its continuous service requirement from 12 months to 26 weeks.

UAL says its new policy was guided by feedback and consultations with staff and trade unions and is supported by an “abundance of evidence” outlining how equal parental leave benefits parents, children, and the economy.

Research from the International Labour Office outlines that generous and non-gender specific paternal leave and pay is one of the most important indirect ways of closing the gender pay gap.

UAL Chief Social Purpose Officer Polly Mackenzie said: “At the heart of UAL’s social purpose strategy is a commitment to pioneer changes that can help solve society’s problems.   

“We hope this move will inspire other organisations to introduce equal parental leave and contribute to a country in which gender no longer determines your earning potential.” 

The Arts Marketing Association (AMA) has launched a series of job templates to help tackle the “growing gulf” between expectations of arts marketing roles and offered pay rates.

It warned that during the pandemic “a huge amount” of marketing talent left the arts, culture and heritage sector, due to a crisis caused by consistently poor pay being offered to skilled workers.

The association reported that recruiters are struggling to fill roles, warning that marketing “ultimately can be the difference between success and failure in reaching audiences and ensuring a sustainable future for organisations”. 

A recent Centre for Cultural Value study revealed that the performing arts workforce is 15% smaller in 2022 than it was in 2021, meaning that staff are working longer hours to accomplish the same level of output. Many advertised vacancies are for two roles that have been merged into one without reducing expectations accordingly, AMA said.

“We’re seeing demoralised and burnt-out arts marketers who have left and will continue to leave our sector,” said CEO of AMA, Cath Hume.

“Long-term this will negatively impact the success of the sector and its organisations. Our members are being asked to take on more and more within their roles, but with no corresponding increase in resource or budgets.”

Many advertised roles have become “catch-all” positions with “wildly unrealistic” expectations, the association said, in part due a widespread misunderstanding of what marketing roles involve, particularly at senior levels.

The new templates aim to combat this by including appropriate job descriptions for various roles that can be used for recruitment. 

As well as creating fairer conditions for existing arts marketers by ensuring that skills and expectations are aligned with the pay and working hours available, they aim to make the sector more accessible and inclusive to those currently under-represented in the workforce.
 

Businesses in the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors are among the most likely to adopt permanent hybrid work models, the latest Office for National Statistics figures reveal.

They show the number of organisations for whom working from home is, or is planned to be, part of their permanent business model has risen from 16% in autumn 2020 to 23% in April 2022.

Organisations in these sectors showed much higher preferences for hybrid work models than others, with 33% working to implement a long-term culture of offsetting days spent in the office with days working from home.

Data suggests most businesses are motivated to make the shift to hybrid work because of improved staff wellbeing, reduced overheads and increased productivity. 

“Despite the removal of all Covid-related restrictions, these latest statistics show there are still a large number of businesses eager to continue a culture of hybrid working,” said Tina Chander, Head of the Employment Law team at Wright Hassall.

She added that many employees are reluctant to return to offices full-time but that employers “still have an obligation to ensure the health and safety of their workforce is protected, even if employees are working from home full-time”.

The gender pay gap has increased at three major music labels, according to data from Music Week.

Based on data from April 2021, Universal Music UK has a median gender pay gap of 27.3% (25.3% in 2020) and an average pay gap of 31% (29.2% in 2020).

Last year, women occupied 27% of the highest paid jobs and 56% of the lowest paid jobs, while bonus pay went to 81% of women and 87% of men.

“While we are on the path to narrowing the pay gap, the positive effects of the actions we’re taking can take time to be reflected positively in the gender pay gap measure,” the label said.

Sony Music UK had a median pay gap of 15% in 2021, up from 8.7%, and a mean pay gap of 27.9%, up from 25.4%.

Women occupied 38.1% of the highest paid roles and 66.1% of the lowest paid roles. The proportion receiving bonuses was close to parity – 81% of women and 83.5% of men – but the median bonus pay gap and mean bonus pay gap both increased.

Sony says it has instigated policies on menopause, pregnancy loss and domestic abuse, now offers Equal Parental Leave, and has continued to appoint women to senior roles, “although we still have more senior men than women”.

Warner Music UK reported its 2021 figures alongside its 2020 numbers, showing an increase in the gender pay gap, from 14.5% to 17.8%, and an increase in the mean pay gap, from 30% to 36.7%.

Women occupy 34% of the highest paid jobs and 57% of the lowest paid jobs. In 2021, 80% of women received a bonus, compared to 91% of men.

Warner Music has set a target to increase female representation in the combined senior and executive positions to 50% by the end of 2025.