LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2020) The culture and entertainment sector in the United Kingdom could suffer a loss of about 74 billion Pounds ($92.8 billion) and lose up to 400,000 jobs this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Creative Industries Federation (CIF) said in a press release on Wednesday.
The epidemiological crisis is expected to affect all areas of the creative professions, including music, theater, film production, television, fashion, publishing, architecture, museums and galleries.
According to the new research by Oxford Economics, as cited by the CIF press release, the industry will lose 1.4 billion pounds a week ($1.7 billion). The blow to the creative sector, which employs more than 2 million people, will be two times stronger than to the UK's economy as a whole.
"With the economic impact of Covid-19 hitting hard, the role of our creative industries has never been more critical ... If nothing is done, thousands of world-leading creative businesses are set to close their doors, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and billions will be lost to our economy. The repercussions would have a devastating and irreversible effect on our country," Caroline Norbury, the head of the Creative Industries Federation, said noting that the industry needed urgent state support.
According to Norbury's estimates, industry revenues will fall by 30 percent, about 119,000 people will lose their permanent jobs by the end of this year, and about 300,000 freelancers will be left without any income.
Theaters, with 61 percent revenue losses, will suffer the most, followed by the music industry with losses up to 50 percent. Museums and galleries may lose up to 9 percent of their revenues and about 4,000 workers. The highest number of layoffs is expected in the music industry with � 114,000, and more than 12,000 people may lose their jobs in theaters.
