"CG-I guess I gotta get another job!"

The rise of CGI in the 21st-century movie industry is not new. Visual effects and CGI have often been used for big fight scenes in films and even in films that need magical or supernatural elements to them. Some say that this rise is just a natural embrace from Hollywood towards evolving technology. 

But with the recent introduction of Alita: Battle Angel (where the main character is digitally animated) and its subsequent success, some could argue that the rise of CGI has hindered employment in the US movie industry.

Now, if you look at employment rates in the movie industry in the last two years, there has been a drop. According to figures from Statista, in 2018 the movie industry employed an estimated 429.8 thousand people, slightly down from the 430.1 thousand recorded in the previous year.

Experts suggest that the rise of special effects could have displaced specific areas of employment in the movie industry.

Black Panther, which was the highest grossing film of 2018, had 22.8% of their company credits for special effects. In 2017, the highest grossing film, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi had only 14.7% of their company credits for special effects.

However, despite the trend, CGI cannot be blamed for everything, especially when it comes to employment in the movie industry. Contextually speaking, when looking at 2017 - 2018 alone, there are a lot of other factors that could have affected employment.

Firstly, the movie industry like any other industry is not exactly infallible when it comes to employment.

Source: Statista

When examining the table above, it is clear that employment in the movie industry is hardly stable nor consistent, thus the drop of employment between 2017-2018 is not the first drop and probably not the last, that the movie industry will experience. Moreover, CGI cannot be the cause of all the dips.

The introduction of virtual reality (VR) centres and their subsequent failure is another factor that could have affected employment In 2016 IMAX, a popular film format and projection system in the cinema industry, introduced a range of VR centres globally (including Los Angeles, Bangkok and Manchester).

This move was intended to be a successful change of direction for the movie industry, however, despite VR being popular, not enough money was being made. Therefore jobs for these centres were lost and the businesses were closed down.

One possible reason that critics suggest could have affected employment in that period was the movies that did badly. For example, if films released in 2018 did not do well in terms of their box office, it is unlikely that production companies will hire more people for a similar film later on in the year.

Experts suggests that Hollywood is about making money and if big name and big budget films flop at the box office, companies are unlikely to risk that amount of money again, any time soon.