International Labour Organization finds wide pay gaps and unrecorded working hours across music, film and live performance

6 November 2026

The International Labour Organization has drawn attention to its study Trends in remuneration and working time: Recorded media and live performance, which covers recorded music, film, television, concerts, theatre and festivals. The study reports that median monthly earnings vary widely between the countries examined, and cautions that survey figures are only indicative because income from several jobs and from royalties and residuals is often missed. In cultural employment in the European Union, women's average gross hourly earnings were 13.5 per cent below men's in 2022. Much of the work in these sectors is not counted as working time at all: rehearsals, travel, setting up and post-production may be paid separately, folded into a fixed fee, or simply not recorded. Irregular schedules and long hours carry consequences for occupational safety and health. Streaming has opened international audiences, but the chains of rights and payments make it hard to trace how a work is used and how the revenue is shared, while artificial intelligence speeds up editing and subtitling and at the same time raises questions of consent, attribution and pay. The ILO lists better data on earnings and hours, clearer contracts, more predictable schedules and skills development as priorities, and points to collective bargaining as the route to workable answers. Dagmar Walter, Director of the ILO's Sectoral Policies Branch, said audiences see the finished film or performance but not the work and investment behind it.