Hollywood Film and TV Jobs Are Going White Collar

Wanna work in entertainment? Better hit the books (and you should probably get comfortable with the idea of student loans).

Hollywood is going to college. In 2022, 68 percent of film and TV jobs in the Los Angeles area were held by individuals with a bachelors degree, according to a new study from Otis College of Art and Design. That’s up from 62 percent in 2013, which itself was significantly higher than the 46 percent of film and TV professionals who were college educated back in 2000.

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Why the surge in higher education? The answer is the same for pretty much every change the entertainment industry has seen in the past decade-plus: streaming.

Hollywood needs “knowledge workers,” defined in the study as those “paid for generating ideas, performing analyses, or creating artistic content,” now more than ever. That means a college education, and studios are primarily seeking prospects with business and business management degrees.

Jobs have “become more complex” since Netflix changed the game with “House of Cards,” the first significant original streaming series, back in 2013. The rights negotiations are trickier and the libraries larger. Hollywood needs “white collar” workers with technical knowhow, Otis College found — or at least the ability to absorb it. The need for physical skills has been significantly diminished.

Today’s Hollywood includes more on-the-job training, and employers may feel more confident that those with a higher education can absorb the new skills faster. This “upskilling,” as Otis College calls it, in film and TV has “attracted highly educated workers from other sectors of the economy, while less-educated workers have left the industry.”

It is important to point out the end point of the Otis College of Art and Design study was 2022, which means it cuts off before the writers and actors strikes drastically impacted the Hollywood workforce in 2023. The cutoff also precedes AI as a potentially large (to huge) disruptor in the space. Neither of these factors seem likely to reverse the trend.

The rise of bachelors degrees is in no way exclusive to the film and TV business, of course, let alone the greater-entertainment industry (which also includes radio, publishing, gaming, and live sports). There are societal and economic pressures to attend college in most American industries, and the labor force is responding. In 2000, just 24 percent of the national workforce (in any industry) held a college diploma. By 2022, it was 38 percent. Traditional trades, meanwhile, are looking for a few good men and women.

The Otis College of Art and Design study uses data from Westwood Economics and Planning Associates as well as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Employment Development Department. Otis College is right down the road from LAX.

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