By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

LONDON, (Reuters) – The COVID-19 epidemic has decimated one third of the UK’s music industry jobs, a trade group said Tuesday. It called on the government to provide support for the sector.

UK Music reported that the numbers of jobs decreased 35%, to 128,000 in 2020 (from 197,000 in 2019), as the pandemic caused a halt to live events and forced studios into closure.

According to “This Is Music 2021”, 69,000 job losses occurred in a sector that has three quarters of its workers being self-employed. They also did not receive any government assistance.

From 5.8 billion in 2019, the music industry’s contribution fell to the UK economy by 46%, to 3.1 Billion Pounds ($4.26 Billillion) in 2020. Exports declined 23% to 2.33 billion pounds.

“The past 18 months have been exceptionally challenging for the UK music industry, with billions wiped off the value of the sector – but we are determined to look to the future and focus on recovery,” UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said.

UK Music urged the government to provide tax incentives, employment-boosting measures and help musicians and crew with paperwork related to touring Europe following Brexit.

According to the report, it is also seeking a permanent drop in value-added taxes (VAT) on live music events and tickets. It also requested more music export funding as well funding music education and self-employment.

Following the imposition of the first national lockdown, March 2020, Britain’s government has announced the creation of a 2billion-pound fund for culture recovery to assist museums, cinemas cinemas, theatres, films, arts venues, and cinemas.

Since then, entertainment venues have reopened. Late summer festivals like the Reading-Leeds twin events were resumed.

($1 = 0.7283 pounds)