The Contributor | Page 44

JOB SEARCHING IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY Still unemployed after your graduation at NHTV? According to the HBO Keuzegids 2015 that is no wonder: almost 75 percent of the HBO students are studying for a profession, which there is no demand for. Unfortunately this is no different for the creative industries. Text WILMA BEIJER Design FLEUR VAN ‘T SLOT F or a long time, job opportunities in the Dutch creative industry went hand in hand with growing job development, but after the economic crisis hit the nation in 2008, this growth got put to an abrupt halt. Figures from the iMMovator Monitor Creative Industry 2014 conclude that after years of a 2,5 percent growth per year, the industry is now shrinking by 0,1 percent per year. DIGITALIZATION iMMovator also states that the shrink of traditional media is due to the growth of digitalization. This declining growth in traditional media also transcended in the decline of jobs in this industry. In the years since the financial crisis hit the nation, 850 jobs were lost in the print sector, 770 in the book-publishing sector and 715 in the radio and television sector. Only when focussing on the positive side of these unfortunate circumstances we see digitalization creating jobs in the form of new subsectors. In 2014 the fastest growing sectors in new media were in the gaming sector with over 3,000 vacancies and in the digital design sector with over 10,000 vacancies. 44 THE CONTRIBUTOR People working in the Dutch creative industry are mostly concentrated in big cities. Half of them can be found in the Dutch Media Valley, which includes cities such as Amsterdam, Utrecht, Hilversum and Haarlem. 57,000 jobs can be found in Amsterdam where the industry has experienced a proportional growth with 2,400 job openings in the last three years. VACANCIES Of course it is unrealistic to expect all of you to go search for a job in the gaming or digital design sector in Amsterdam. Therefore this article’s purpose is to remind you of the fact that your fellow alumni can now also serve as your network in the search for a job. So we stimulate the alumni who are fortunate to have a job in the creative industry to post vacancies that their company has, in this group so all alumni and we at the Contributor can help the unemployed find their dream job. THE CONTRIBUTOR 45