A report by The Bureau of Labour Statistics finds 4.2% of jobs in the US print industry have been shed in 2009.
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In the year closing November 2009, 86,800 workers in the US print publishing industry were made unemployed, according to a release by The Bureau of Labour Statistics. 4,200 jobs were lost in November alone, amounting to a 4.2% total decline in the number of positions. Though total unemployment in the US dropped slightly in November – down to 10% - the print industry has fared badly, with publishers including Time Inc. and BusinessWeek.com announcing high rates of redundancy. The news comes only days after Tenon Recovery released a statement saying that 90% of the UK print industry faces collapse.
The huge rise in printing unemployment owes much to a bad year for the US print market. On Friday, the chief economist of the Printing Industries of America, Dr. Ronnie Davis, projected that output in the print US industry will fall 4.5%, followed by 2.5% in 2010. Flagging demand from publishers means 18% of print companies in the US vanished between 2005-2008. A 1% year decline in demand suggests more print businesses will disappear from the market before conditions improve, with existing companies having to charge ever lower prices to remain solvent.
So hard have the existing firms been squeezed, the value in shipments fell $1.1 billion from October 2008. WhatTheyThink.com reports that what is usually the industry’s most important month – in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving season and Christmas – is now second to March. According to the director of WhatTheyThink’s Economics and Research Centre, Dr. Webb, the 13% reduction owes much to the transition to digital media. He commented: ”The communications market is very dynamic… the guidelines for media selection and deployment are being rewritten every day.”
Yet publishers have failed to adapt, with many redundancies across the entire sector. Gawker.com reports that Time Inc. have laid off the assistant editors at Fortune Magazine, with other cutbacks in personnel within the conglomerate’s publications. Elsewhere, BusinessWeek.com has decided to drop 130 of its regular staffers, while the Washington Post has announced it is shedding 40 of its workforce. According to MNILive.com, more than 5000 members of the US newspaper industry were made redundant last year – while figures for 2009 have not been announced.
The report today by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics bodes ill. Moreover, the statistics do not include job losses within the online part of the US print industry. The real unemployment figures will hence be much higher than those reported. Although the downturn of the US economy is righting itself, with employment in commercial banking increasing by 1% in 2009, the print industry remains exempt from the recovery. This likely is because of the transition to online media - the newspaper industry is negotiating with Google for its very survival – but means it may be some time yet before today’s job losses are recovered.
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In the year closing November 2009, 86,800 workers in the US print publishing industry were made unemployed, according to a release by The Bureau of Labour Statistics. 4,200 jobs were lost in November alone, amounting to a 4.2% total decline in the number of positions. Though total unemployment in the US dropped slightly in November – down to 10% - the print industry has fared badly, with publishers including Time Inc. and BusinessWeek.com announcing high rates of redundancy. The news comes only days after Tenon Recovery released a statement saying that 90% of the UK print industry faces collapse.
The huge rise in printing unemployment owes much to a bad year for the US print market. On Friday, the chief economist of the Printing Industries of America, Dr. Ronnie Davis, projected that output in the print US industry will fall 4.5%, followed by 2.5% in 2010. Flagging demand from publishers means 18% of print companies in the US vanished between 2005-2008. A 1% year decline in demand suggests more print businesses will disappear from the market before conditions improve, with existing companies having to charge ever lower prices to remain solvent.
So hard have the existing firms been squeezed, the value in shipments fell $1.1 billion from October 2008. WhatTheyThink.com reports that what is usually the industry’s most important month – in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving season and Christmas – is now second to March. According to the director of WhatTheyThink’s Economics and Research Centre, Dr. Webb, the 13% reduction owes much to the transition to digital media. He commented: ”The communications market is very dynamic… the guidelines for media selection and deployment are being rewritten every day.”
Yet publishers have failed to adapt, with many redundancies across the entire sector. Gawker.com reports that Time Inc. have laid off the assistant editors at Fortune Magazine, with other cutbacks in personnel within the conglomerate’s publications. Elsewhere, BusinessWeek.com has decided to drop 130 of its regular staffers, while the Washington Post has announced it is shedding 40 of its workforce. According to MNILive.com, more than 5000 members of the US newspaper industry were made redundant last year – while figures for 2009 have not been announced.
The report today by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics bodes ill. Moreover, the statistics do not include job losses within the online part of the US print industry. The real unemployment figures will hence be much higher than those reported. Although the downturn of the US economy is righting itself, with employment in commercial banking increasing by 1% in 2009, the print industry remains exempt from the recovery. This likely is because of the transition to online media - the newspaper industry is negotiating with Google for its very survival – but means it may be some time yet before today’s job losses are recovered.
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