By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA

Cultural employment in Turkey increased in 2017 compared to the previous year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said on Friday.

"In 2017, 614,000 people were included in cultural employment in Turkey with an increase of 4.4 percent compared to 2016," TurkStat said.

It added that 51.5 percent of the cultural employees were males and 48.7 percent were females.

"64.8 percent of the people in cultural employment were in the 30-54 age group, 27.7 percent in the 15-29 age group and 7.5 percent in the 55-and-over age group," TurkStat said.

It added that 87.1 percent had a cultural occupation. "According to cultural occupation groups, the share of handicraft workers was 45.8 percent, the share of architects, planners and surveyors was 14.3 percent and the share of creative and performing artists was 8.8 percent."

The next cultural employment figures are due to be released in June 2019.