Creating Skills and Salary Guidelines for Arts Workers

Ms Usha Chandradas asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth whether the Ministry has any plans to develop or lead any initiatives to create comprehensive skills and salary guidelines for arts workers so as to ensure that competitive salaries are provided to members of the arts community and to improve talent attraction and retention within the various arts groups.

Singapore’s vibrant arts and culture sector has grown over the years. We intend to continue to nurture the sector to evolve and develop to meet our society’s artistic and cultural needs. At the same time, it also presents a diverse range of job roles and work opportunities, along multiple career pathways.

The arts sector and incomes of arts workers have been growing.

The evolving strength of our sector reflects the talent and industriousness of our arts practitioners, along with the Government’s continued investment in the arts sector to sustain and nurture its development. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the Government intervened heavily to support the sector. We rolled out the $75 million Arts and Culture Resilience Package which helped to sustain arts companies and preserve jobs, including for self-employed persons, within the industry. It also provided a boost to the sector, helping it emerge stronger from the pandemic when we fully resumed activities last year.

With the Government, arts community and private sector working together, the arts sector has been able to resume its growth trajectory. The nominal value-added of the arts sector rebounded from $740 million in 2020 to $910 million in 2022. This is nearly back to the pre-COVID level of $950 million in 20191.

Median nominal gross monthly incomes for full-time employed residents in the arts sector have also increased by 26.5% between 2018 and 2023. This is higher than the rate of growth for national median nominal gross monthly income, which increased by 17.1% over the same period2.

The Government, through Arts Plan 2.0, which will be elaborated upon below, and other initiatives, intends to further the growth of the arts sector. There are various opportunities which we can harness, such as improving technology, which makes it easier for artists to share their work with audiences worldwide. The Government is committed to working with the arts sector to help our artists take advantage of these opportunities and earn sustainable, competitive livelihoods.

The Government believes that creating good jobs and gigs in the arts sector requires a multi-pronged approach. It is not about setting salary guidelines per se. Rather, creating good jobs for artists requires a competitive and sustainable arts sector, with a strong foundation. That, in turn, requires three components: strong arts companies and skilled practitioners representing a diverse range of art forms, as well as a wide audience base supportive of and prepared to pay for the consumption of local arts. Under Our SG Arts Plan 2023-2027, the National Arts Council (NAC) aims to advance all three of these causes.

Strong companies. First, we need to strengthen Singaporean arts companies. Strong companies will be able to provide more and better work opportunities for arts workers and better pay. We are starting from a good base. The number of arts companies has increased over the past few years, from around 3,700 in 2019 to over 4,800 in 2022, showing that many recognise that there continues to be strong demand for arts products and services, and artists are prepared to set up companies to make art.

NAC has provided support to help our arts companies grow, whether through organisational schemes, such as the Major Company Scheme, or through the various project grants that cater to different purposes. Strong companies are significant in the overall ecosystem landscape, as they provide opportunities for our artists to hone their craft to and be recognised both locally and internationally.

One example is Jazz Association (Singapore), or JASS, founded by Cultural Medallion recipient Jeremy Monteiro in 2016. JASS’ vision is to expand the jazz community, advance jazz education and bring jazz music to new audiences through their outreach efforts. NAC has supported JASS over the years through project and organisational funding. JASS today is a staple of the arts scene and they have made it a part of their mission to give back and hone the next generation of our musicians.

For instance, JASS has played many gigs with Rit Xu, an outstanding Singaporean flautist who received NAC’s Young Artist Award in 2022 and who was celebrated as the first Southeast Asian to win a solo jazz competition in the United States. Through such opportunities and many others, Rit has been able to hone his practice over time, perfecting his craft with every gig and has been on world tour with the Jacky Cheung 60+ World Concert tour since 2023.

Skilled Practitioners. The second prong is to develop a pipeline of skilled practitioners who would be able to take on these jobs. Over the years, the Government has invested heavily in building up the local talent pool in the arts. For instance, we have set up arts education institutions, such as the School of the Arts and the new University of the Arts Singapore. These schools produce a pipeline of forward-looking, talented arts graduates with a good base of skills who enter the arts workforce already ready to contribute and share their unique voices and perspectives.

It is also important that arts workers who are already in the industry are able to further upgrade their skills and keep current. NAC provides support for arts workers to undergo continuing education and training, so that arts workers can continually improve their skills. We have introduced programmes to help arts workers to equip themselves with new and emerging skills to ensure their competitiveness and employability.

To maximise employability, we aim to help arts workers continually enhance their skillsets. First, workers need to know what skills they need to acquire. We have introduced initiatives like the Skills Framework for Arts, jointly launched by NAC and SkillsFuture Singapore in 2023. These structured frameworks are beneficial to help practitioners understand skill needs, improve their own capabilities and forge their own career pathways.

Second, when workers have understood what skills they need to acquire, NAC provides assistance to help them acquire those skills. For instance, NAC has introduced new training initiatives, such as the Backstage Affair’s Apprenticeship Pilot. This programme allows apprentices to learn the ropes of stage and production management through a hands-on approach in actual productions, providing valuable work opportunities to acquire new skills and build their work experience.

With these strategies, we will ensure that our arts workers are well-positioned to take advantage of the work opportunities available.

Developing Audiences. Finally, we will need audiences to be supportive of and willing to pay for the arts. Having a healthy demand for the arts and culture is key to ensuring that there will continue to be opportunities for arts companies and artists. This benefits not just our artists, but our society as well, nurturing social and emotional well-being, connection to our roots and social bonding.

Under Our SG Arts Plan 2023-2027, we are creating more ways for Singaporeans to get involved in and support the arts. For instance, ArtsEverywhere@CDC is a partnership between NAC and the five Community Development Councils to bring high quality arts experiences to major heartland nodes, such as Our Tampines Hub and Toa Payoh Hub. Through monthly performances and activities, we aim to engage more than 50,000 residents in various communities across Singapore, significantly expanding opportunities for Singaporeans to support local artists and arts groups. This initiative also creates job opportunities for artists and arts groups, helps them reach new audiences to grow their audience base and generates greater awareness of their art forms.

NAC is also supporting our arts companies and artists in reaching new audiences and markets. This helps our artists to enhance their stature and marketability. For example, in the visual arts sector, NAC has consistently worked to raise the prominence of Singapore’s visual artists on the international stage by supporting their efforts to expand their reach to new audiences and collectors. In 2024, NAC supported numerous artists at overseas exhibitions and Biennales, including Robert Zhao, Ho Rui An, Bani Haykal, Zarina Muhammad and more3. NAC also supports art galleries to present Singapore artists’ works at key international fairs, including Frieze Seoul, Asia Now and Taipei Dangdai.

NAC has also supported our local writers in finding international audiences. For example, NAC worked with publishers to participate in the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair. The publishers reported a total of 14 sales of rights post-fair, including rights sold by Marshall Cavendish and World Scientific for Singapore literary titles and children’s picture books respectively. Such deals are part of NAC’s efforts to help our writers monetise their intellectual property, finding wider audiences and contributing to their income.

With wider audiences and strong demand, we will be able to create a robust ecosystem capable of supporting strong companies and good jobs for arts workers.

The effort to improve employment outcomes for arts workers is an ongoing one. Earlier this year, we announced that the Government would be investing another $100 million to grow the arts sector over the next four years under the Our SG Arts Plan 2023-2027, on top of existing funding. This will support our efforts to build a wider audience for the arts, develop our arts workers and strengthen a robust ecosystem, all of which will contribute to creating good jobs and work opportunities for Singaporeans in the arts sector.