The first systematic analysis of crew wage retention across 77 film production incentive markets. Proprietary methodology. Original data. A new framework for understanding where workforce investment matters most.
Every market with a production incentive is trying to build a local crew base. But until now, there has been no consistent framework for measuring whether that investment is working — or how much crew wage value is leaking to imported labor.
The Local Hire Rate scores each market on a 0–100 scale: the percentage of crew wages retained by locally trained workers. The higher the score, the more a market’s incentive spend is recaptured by its own workforce.
Established production hubs provide reference points against which developing markets can measure their crew readiness. The gap between these anchors and emerging markets defines the opportunity.
77 market profiles — each scored on the LHR scale with local hire rates, department head import rates, estimated crew wage leakage, addressable jobs, and data quality assessments.
Engine Room companion document — individual one-page profiles for all 77 markets with detailed breakdowns of production spend, incentive structures, and workforce capacity indicators.
Full methodology — transparent documentation of the LHR scoring framework, data sources, two-tier jobs-lost calculation model, and the assumptions behind every number.
Addressable Leakage analysis — the primary scoreboard metric, identifying where workforce development investment will yield the highest return per dollar.
KSe Research is the research division of Kalison Studios, a workforce development consultancy with more than 20 years of experience connecting training programs to production employment across nine markets and four continents.
The LHR framework wasn’t built by analysts studying the industry from the outside. It was built by the people who design, launch, and operate crew training programs — and who see the gap between workforce supply and production demand every day.
The full report is priced at $799. Film commissions, government agencies, and institutional partners may request complimentary copies.
The four-page overview includes headline findings, anchor benchmarks, methodology summary, and sample market comparisons. No registration required.
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