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Employment in Printing is Down, but Advertising is Up

By Doc | January 23, 2012, 6:48am PST

Summary: Doc’s not sure if these declines are a long-range trend or just a result of the down economy. Either way, it’s not good news for commercial printing.

Doc’s reported before on the decline in young people going into the commercial printing business, which seems to be an industry with little or no growth. Well now, according to a recent report, employment in the industry is down overall.

In the meantime, there are some very interesting things happening with printing employment, unfortunately to the downside. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that printing employment contracted by -1,900 workers from September to October. The greatest majority of those were production workers, which is not a good sign for Q4-2011 industry shipments. Since last year, printing employment has dropped by -19,400 workers (October 2011 vs. October 2010).

At the same time, employment in advertising agencies and graphic design firms has increased by +24,900 (September 2011 vs. September 2010).

Employment in printing, advertising + graphic design peaked in mid-2000 at a little under 1.4 million workers. Today, the combination of the industries is nearly 960,000, so employment is down in all of them since that time, but advertising + graphic design is growing again. It’s probably even greater, since freelance workers are not included in the calculations.

Doc’s not sure if these declines are a long-range trend or just a result of the down economy. Either way, it’s not good news for commercial printing.

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Worker, Advertising, Printing, Doc, Printing Employment, Document Management, Managed Print Services, Desktop Publishing, Enterprise Software, Software

Biography

Doc

ZDNet introduces Doc (The DocuMentor), sponsored by RICOH. Through his blog, Doc will educate you about Document Management. So who is Doc? Doc is something of an enigma. He was born to a Russian ballerina and a German electrical engineer who some believe was running covert operations for shadowy corporate interests. Doc grew up in various locations in the United States, although no one seems to know precisely where, least of all Doc. His early schooling was unremarkable except for the time he was caught trying to replace all the mimeograph machines with high-tech color copiers that had mysteriously disappeared from a shipment to Albania. At MIT, he made a name for himself by transforming a large printer into a robot that hunts and eats Roombas. Professionally, he reportedly has seen the insides of more brands, versions, and generations of printer and printer-related hardware than almost anyone. Some say his obsession with paper, printing, and mechanical movement was either started by, or evidenced by, a traumatic childhood episode when he crawled inside an old Xerox 2400 and tried to print himself.

Anyway, Doc has hands on experience with stuff like printer maintenance and fleet management, but his mastery of document management leaves no stone unturned. Important issues like sustainability, security, and regulatory compliance are top of mind for Doc, as are other business technology needs like networking and IT services, making him a true blue IT renaissance man.

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