The Office of Creative Sector was designed to focus on a broad range of creative occupations as Loveland recognizes that creative thinking and problem solving is needed throughout many job descriptions from being a visual artist to a craft brewer to an engineer working on clean energy. In order to define the scope of work for the OCSD and to be able to measure the current and future impact of the creative sector, a great amount of research went into defining what Loveland considers to be part of this conglomeration.

The OCSD partnered with the Economic Gardening Specialist at the City of Loveland to establish this range of occupations using the NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification System). Then we were able to assess the number of jobs within this range and then narrow down the payroll data and other impacts of this sector. By developing this data set, we can measure our success in the retention and addition of creative jobs and their impact on the community as a whole over the next three years. The Creative Sector in Loveland is

• Over 2400 jobs out of workforce of 33,000 (nearly 8% of the workforce overall) this is 4x the national average and 2x the state average
• Creative sector employees earn an average of $5,000 more per year than the average local employee
• $100 million in payroll dollars annually and growing stronger every day

Additional regional data is available through the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corporation website. This includes data on salaries, education, demographics, utilities, environment, government and more.