EU survey presented at jazzahead!
Significant impact on work and life : Jazz musicians all over Europe suffer from Covid-related measurements
Closed stages, clubs, concert halls and festivals – the international jazz scene has been hit particularly hard by coronavirus-related restrictions since March 2020. Although the governments are providing a variety of financial aid programs, a lot of jazz musicians are fearing for their existence.
In comparison to many other professions, musicians are affected in particular regarding cross-border mobility and work. For this reason, politics are not only asked on a national but as well on a European level to help create a long-term recovery program for musicians.
About the survey
A collaboration of jazz music unions and federations in Europe, concerned to make the artists voices heard, designed a survey to ask about the economic and creative impact of the pandemic on the professional and personal life of professional jazz musicians living and working in Europe, including Non-EU-countries.
Given our networks, we mainly wanted to know, what the situation is, especially for jazz musicians, and their perception of governmental aids for artists in their country. Not only do we ask for the need of an European solution, but it is also interesting to ask, if the situation is similar in the respective countries – to see if we can learn from each other in handling the situation and define best and worst practice examples.
The survey was launched at the beginning of December 2020 and has been active until mid-March 2021. Its main purpose is to highlight the main issues encountered by jazz musicians all over Europe.
Overview of survey participants
About 2 200 people from 23 different European countries completed the survey,
Most of the answers came from jazz musicians from Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal,
Five percent of the participants are younger than 24 years old, 54% are between 25 and 44 years old, 37% are between 45 and 64 years and 4% are more than 65 years old,
81% of participants are male, 19% are female, under 1 % indicated no gender,
A stunning 96% of these participants are part of one or more music union or federation,
The big majority of participants consider themselves as full-time musician,
About 11 % of participants work as part-time musician and have a supplementary job that is not related to music,
More than 72% earn most of their living in performing and 24% in teaching,
In nearly all countries, among the participants, the number of freelance musicians exceed 70%, while only 23% have an employment status as employed jazz teacher (19%) or as employed jazz musician (4%).
Impact of Covid-related measurements on creative, professional, economic and personal life of jazz musicians
The survey shows a sharp decline in the possibilities of playing concerts in Covid times which is a devastating outcome. This has affected the musicians not only on a financial level, but also on a personal and creative level.
Impact on creative work
- 59% of the participants experienced a negative impact on their creative work,
- Paradoxically, nearly 23 % claim that the pandemic has improved their creative work since the pandemic started,
- A similar number of participants think that the creative effects will also be worse in 2021.
Impact on professional and economic situation
Performances :
- In 2019, most participants reported playing 21-40 concerts (30%), 41-60 concerts (24%) or less than 20 concerts (22%); about 6 % played more than 60 concerts a year,
- In 2020, 91% of these performing musicians played either less than 20 (72%) concerts or no concerts at all (19%); only 2% played between 41 to 100 concerts that year.
Financial and professional effects :
Regarding the personal financial effects of the pandemic on jazz musicians, the results are mostly striking.
More than 86% of the survey participants state that their economic situation has worsened since the pandemic started. Nearly the same number of people believe that this will not change in 2021,
As one of the consequences, 30% had to change their job completely or in a supplement to survive. 30% are expecting to change jobs in 2021 and another 33% believe that this might happen,
It is alarming to see that only 37% are sure that they will be able to continue their work as jazz musicians.
Impact on personal situation
- For 75% of the participants the pandemic had negative effects on the personal situation (mental and physical health, social situation)
Governmental Covid aid programs
54% of the participants actually received financial aid while 46% of the participants didn’t receive financial aid,
Especially many participants from Portugal (63%) and Spain (62%) and Italy (52%) claim they have not received financial aid,
The share of those who have received financial aid is highest in Greece (80%), Germany (78%), Denmark (69%) and Switzerland (67%).
Perception of the situation by jazz musicians about aid programs
67% of all the jazz musicians are dissatisfied with financial aids offered by their governments,
It is remarkable, that in all age groups you can find a dissatisfaction rate with financial aids of an average of 58 %,
Dissatisfaction with governmental aid is particularly high in Portugal (84%), Greece (77%) and Spain with 74% while in comparison to a similar amount of participants the proportion is lowest in Netherlands (38%), Switzerland (42%) and France (41%).
It is outstanding that especially the participants from Southern European countries are dissatisfied.
A crisis that brings out new needs for European artists of jazz and improvised music
Looking at these numbers, it is obvious that 96% of all participants believe it is important to have a united voice of Jazz musicians in Europe in order to improve working conditions of professional jazz musicians.