@alwaysamom is correct. Broadway employment (“Playing Weeks” in Equity parlance) did move up nicely last year (an increase of almost 10%), but there was no growth between 2000 and 2014. Any growth during the period was offset by a rather steep decline from 2010-2014. It will be interesting to see if this year’s upward tick in jobs is a trend or an anomaly. Over the past 30 years, the CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for Broadway employment has been less than 1.5% per year, with most of that growth occurring prior to 2000. Since 2000, the CAGR for Playing Weeks has been just over one-half of one percent (about 0.7%) per year.
Over the past five years, attendance is up slightly (less than 5%), but the number of new shows is down 10%. The biggest rise has been in average paid admission prices - up more than 20%. Broadway attendance grew dramatically during the 1990’s, but has largely leveled off since 2000. Attendance is up only 10% over the past 15 years, for a CAGR of less than 1%.
Source: https://www.broadwayleague.com/index.php?url_identifier=season-by-season-stats-1
I believe that the growth in Broadway attendance in the 1990’s was primarily due to the revitalization of Times Square and Broadway based to a large extent on the influence of Disney and commercial real estate development which drove more tourism business to the area.
The thread that I wrote on employment for actors a while back can be found here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1418008-more-freakonomics-life-upon-the-wicked-stage-p1.html - caution, the numbers are not pretty.