A major report has found a skills shortage in South Australia's creative industries Ian Cope, producer at Rising Sun Pictures at his studios in Pulteney Street. SKILLED workers are being flown into South Australia to cover a worrying creative industry skills shortage, the first comprehensive survey of the state's arts, creative and cultural sectors has found. The Creative Futures Report released today showed the sector was growing but one in three businesses suffered labour or skills shortages. Figures showed the sector had employment growth of 7.5 per cent compared to the state average of 5.3 per cent. However, "one in two businesses had found difficulty finding suitable applicants" in the highest growth areas of administration, creative and marketing. World-renowned visual effects company Rising Sun Pictures was regularly forced to fly professionals into Adelaide to meet client requests because it was a struggle to find the right skills locally. "We face incredible skills shortages in our region with significant numbers of professional Australian vfx (visual effects) artists heading to Canada and New Zealand for work," Marcus Wells, who heads recruitment and human resources at the Adelaide-based company, said. Rising Sun's credits include Hollywood blockbusters Gravity, The Hunger Games, many of the Harry Potter films and The Wolverine. Rising Sun's Ian Cope has helped create a new 10 week intensive visual effects course at Flinders University to address the problem, but said there was still not enough local skill to meet client demands. "For some of our projects we have a really multicultural staff," Mr Cope said. But he said the company also struggled with drawn out 457 visa applications that could take up to 10 weeks to submit and process when the company often had immediate client deadlines to meet. The Creative Futures Report surveyed 772 individuals and 164 businesses. Almost half the businesses surveyed said they planned to create new jobs in the next three years, equating to 1000 full time jobs for the state. Adelaide Festival chief executive Karen Bryant said 185 people were employed to deliver the 2012 event program and 234 for 2013. "The Adelaide Festival has doubled in size, but staff numbers have not," she said. Burn out is a common issue with annual festivals and the staffing demands of the festival going annual are still being accessed. Festival 2014 production director Taren Hornhardt said the event needed about 100 short term staff to deliver the festival each year and "we are currently sourcing approximately 20 per cent from interstate." The Arts Industry Council of SA (AICSA) released the report that also raised concerns about the sector's ageing workforce. Some 50 per cent of employees surveyed were aged 40 to 64 years, and this made "succession planning and knowledge retention a concern for organisations." AICSA deputy chair Gail Kovatseff called for crucial investment so the arts, creative and cultural sectors could reach their full social and economic potential. "The state's creative industries generate more than $1.34 billion in annual revenue with the state's 10 major festivals contributing $62.9 million to the local economy," Ms Kovatseff said. We need strategic government investment to address the immediate skills and training shortages, and increase the professional development opportunities. She said it was important to "future proof against the ageing workforce" fearing important knowledge would be lost in the next five years as key players retired. The report said within 34 small to medium organisations in the past 12 months, nearly 90 full time employees retired, equating to more than half the total number who had left these workplaces. Service Skills SA chief executive officer Graham Oades said work on pinpointing skills shortages must happen as the industry in some areas struggled to find workers keeping up to date with a rapidly changing sector. "A lot of it needs to be working more closely and directly with industry on timely and short skills development," he said. Creative industries covered by the report include visual arts, craft and design, live performance, screen and media, music, writing, publishing and print, entertainment, advertising and marketing, software development and interactive, libraries, gallery and museums, integrated design and built environment.