IMI researcher helps shape Toronto’s culture plan

Toronto’s bold new vision to strengthen its cultural sector is being supported by comprehensive labour market research conducted by Tara Vinodrai, a professor in the Institute for Management & Innovation at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
An accomplished scholar of labour, economic and innovation trends in urban areas, Vinodrai is one of multiple academics affiliated with U of T’s School of Cities whom the city’s Economic Development & Culture Division engaged as research partners to support the evidence-based development of its Culture Connects: An Action Plan for Culture in Ontario, 2025-2035, which it adopted in November. Vinodrai’s participation involved undertaking a longitudinal quantitative analysis of employment trends in the cultural labour force to reflect how it contributes to the city’s prosperity. Her findings are encompassed in her July 2024 report, Toronto’s Cultural Sector: Economic Dynamics and Change, 1991 to 2021.

Vinodrai’s research revealed that during the 30-year time period examined, growth in creative and cultural employment outpaced growth in most other regional labour markets. An increase rate of 2.5% was determined in the creative industries, which the report defines as including performing arts, publishing, design, advertising, motion pictures and video, broadcasting and architecture. By comparison, the overall employment growth rate in the city was 1.7%, with only the information and communication technology (3.4%) and medical and biotechnology (2.3%) industries experiencing greater gains.
When studying employment trends in specific creative or cultural occupations, which include artists, actors, architects, composers, dancers, musicians and writers, Vinodrai observed similar growth trends. Overall, the number of workers in the city’s cultural sector grew from 97,135 to 141,130, which was an increase of about 45%. As well, Toronto’s cultural labour force accounted for 4.4% of the workforce, compared to 3.5% for Canada as a whole.
“The cultural sector is seen to contribute to quality if life, but is often overlooked or dismissed in terms of its economic value,” says Vinodrai, who directs the Master of Urban Innovation program, in which she teaches a course on urban and regional economic development theories. “This report underscores how the cultural labour force directly adds value to the city’s economy, and makes the case for why there should be investment and policy support for our cultural and creative industries.”
Vinodrai’s report builds on similar research she conducted for the city in 2011 to inform its culture plan.’s Her other investigations into cultural industries included a 2023 study on how policymakers interpret and deploy cultural economy approaches within their economic development strategies for 33 of Ontario’s largest municipalities. Vinodrai also studies the relationships between housing affordability and economic development; manufacturing and the maker economy; and the social and spatial implications of the shift to remote work.
Another key insight from Vinodrai’s report that can help the city understand how to direct its cultural investment dollars relates to the employment decline in the relatively lower-skill domain of cultural support employment. These are occupations associated with enabling the production and consumption of culture and include A/V technicians, printing press operators, library assistants, patternmakers, film processors and architectural technicians. Vinodrai theorizes that increasing digitalization has affected the quantity of these jobs and the skills required to perform them, while the COVID-19 pandemic and Toronto’s rising cost of living and lack of affordable housing may have influenced these workers to leave the region.

The report Vinodrai produced was one of three studies on Toronto’s cultural sector that U of T scholars produced for the city to aid the development of its culture plan. The other two, led by sociology professor Daniel Silver, are the May 2024 report An Outcomes Framework for Toronto’s Culture Plan, and the September 2023 report Reimagining Music Venues: Toward New Models of Conservation and Innovation for Ontario’s Live Music Spaces. The researchers presented their findings to the city’s advisory panel of community leaders from across the cultural sector and creative industries.
Toronto’s new culture plan embraces four main priorities: supporting the development of one million square feet of new cultural space; providing every resident with access to at least one free city-sponsored cultural experience per month in their neighbourhood; increasing investment in culture by $35 million; and enabling 1,000 new creative export and artist exchange projects. Vinodrai sees these goals as vital to building residents’ demand for cultural activities, which will help to spur further growth in the sector.
“They’re ambitious priorities, but I think they’re necessary,” says Vinodrai, who has been invited by the Ontario Arts Council to join its new advisory committee examining the economic impact of the province’s culture sector. “Culture plays an outsized role in how the city evolves, so it makes sense to support its growth.”