Here's the best infographic you will see on Northern Ireland’s growing Knowledge Economy this year: http://t.co/alH9ZYopyc
— NISP CONNECT (@nispconnect) November 26, 2013
Cool, huh. But look at this.
There’s more to these numbers than meets the eye.
Despite the fact that the Digital Circle membership has been growing since 2008 and currently sits at 321 business and 2107 members, the methodology used by government in these statistics says that employment dipped 41% from 711 to 413.
Now, part of this is the definitions.
How many people making computer games would identify closer to software than “creative content and digital media”? Indeed, there is a section in the SIC codes classification for computer games (code 50920210).
So we have to look at the definitions:
Creative Content
- 59111 Motion picture production activities
- 59112 Video production activities
- 59113 Television programme production activities
- 59120 Motion picture, video and television post]production activities
- 59200 Sound recording and music publishing activities
- 18201 reproduction of sound recording
- 18202 reproduction of video recording
- 18203 reproduction of computer media
Software
- 58210 Publishing of computer games
- 58290 Other software publishing
- 62011 Computer programming activities
- 62012 Business and domestic software development
- 63120 Web portals
Software as a whole has grown but the employment in the video/audio sector has dropped. Some of this will be due to the environment (and that includes the BBC rationalisation in their DQF project) but also these figures are from 2011. That means it’s going to be previous to the immense growth in the animation sector in recent years.
And while the Creative Content sector may have reduced in employment, the number of companies in the sector has actually risen. It looks like the industry is changing – indies are rising as the BBC reduces.