Creative industries in the EU: factors influencing employment

. When analysing creative industries, it is not fully clear yet, which factors do influence this phenomenon, and thus how to support its development and functioning. The creative sector employs about 3.3% of the economically active population in the European Union. The aim of this research paper is to test the possible impact of five selected factors on the employment in the creative industries of the European Union. Results. The data represent 135 observations from 27 EU member states, drawn from the Eurostat database in the period of 2008-2012. Our final model confirmed a significant impact of public spending on science and research, employment in science and research and average wages in creative industries. Our model confirmed positive relationship between public spending on R&D and employment in creative industries. Hence, for every increase in expenditures on R&D by 1%, we may expect 0.014% increase in employment in creative industries. Conclusions. Thus, the research confirms the importance of public support for science and research, as it seems that the development of science and research boosts the development of creative industries as well. This could also apply to a general increase in wages.