Employment statistics in our industry -- the real truth!

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Permalink Reply by Dr Joe Webb on April 16, 2009 at 2:58pm

The monthly Commerce Department are correct as they are from the Form 941 filings of Social Security tax payments. They are NOT part of the job counts data that are part of the Occupational Survey.

The Occupational Survey data is real trash, not just for the printing industry, but for many industries, especially for small businesses where people have multiple tasks that span job titles.

Do not confuse the two data series. The employment data, which is collected without regard to job title, is absolutely superb and matches up with industry shipments data quite well. The reason it is so good is that there is a Social Security number for each and every employee that is counted, and that compliance by employers is compelled by the penalty of law.

The Occupational Survey has a comparatively weak methodology and is subject to various projections and estimates. It is so weak, that they average the latest and the past five surveys of data to fill in their blanks.

As far as 1.1 million employees in 2003, that can only be accomplished by adding many business sectors to the industry beyond commercial printing, such as packaging and some other categories. I keep hearing these numbers, but I have never seen them documented in detail by NAICS. I know that many of these "common wisdom" numbers include newspapers and packaging, but they have never been detailed. Inplant/corporate printing employment would have to be estimated because those employees are included in the total employees of the industries in which they work (such as banking, insurance, manufacturing). It is only in this instance that the Occupational Survey can be of some assistance in taking a somewhat educated guess at what that employment is.

So it is not accurate to say "State and local boards of education use the BLS employment data" at all. The correct statement is "State and local boards of education use the BLS OCCUPATIONAL data" instead. It is very important that this distinction be made. I see and hear this confusion constantly.

And on an economic basis, if those employees were in high demand, their wages would be rising. Wages, adjusted for inflation, have been flat for years, after a big tumble downward in the 1970s. One of the reasons is that sales per employee has been virtually flat, adjusted for inflation growing at less than 1% per year, for about the same time.

The most reliable data for employment come from another report, the Economic Census, which will be released this summer. It is a true Census, and does not use the BLS occupational data. But uses direct surveys of plants (again, under penalty of law), blind tax records for small businesses, and social security filings.

As far as 2003 data, I get the following if you want to add some other sectors
NAICS 323 Commercial Printing: 686,400
NAICS 3222 Converted paper products: 369,100 (numerous packaging categories)
NAICS 32611 Plastics packaging materials, film and sheet: 89,900 (flexible packaging)
NAICS 51111 Newspaper publishing 385,400 (not certain how many would be in printing depts)

At that time, I would guess that there were probably in the range of 60,000 workers in inplant printing departments.

This of course would not include those involved in paper merchants and graphic arts dealers, and also those working for vendors.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 18, 2009 at 11:28am

Dr Joe,
Thanks for the reality check. The point you make about rising vs flat salaries is the real issue for students. Any stats are really for the purpose of fighting for academic respect and budget. Both are reasonable pursuits, but it's important to separate one from the other.

To those in the education businessbr /> As a former academic the real metric is the number of student enrollments. The reality is that when the choices are aggregated over many students, those enrollment figures give the best guidance. If it's flat or going down, the problem is not with Print. The problem is the offering of a particular department. Standalone print programs, even with the addition of web and computers is not going to do it, IMHO.

Given that the big trends are the growth of small business, I think enrollments would significantly increase if the focus was on starting your own communication business, instead of "supplying the needs of industry." Every student I ever met, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid wants to be their own boss. Since the opportunities for being your own boss if you master print, web and design skills is so great, I think this passes the "why wouldn't I do that? test.

It's much more reasonable that trying to motivate students to work for an industry that is having a very hard time, right now.

Permalink Reply by Dr Joe Webb on April 18, 2009 at 1:17pm

15 years ago, 60-65% of graphic designers worked in graphic design firms.... now that same percentage work freelance. Student enrollments have been a getter gauge of where opportunities are, especially with new media. It does look at one of those chicken and egg things where the answer is always "yes" :) We're now at 1985 or 1986 levels of employment in printing, and employment in content creation and design jobs has filled in the gap. I blogged about this in August 2008
http://members.whattheythink.com/allsearch/articleerc.cfm?id=35205
Employment levels have changed a bit since then. My worry is that the decline between February 2009 and March 2009 employment of -5500 workers was so large that it might be a sign of yet more to come, since employment changes lag business changes by a month or so in our industry.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 18, 2009 at 5:41pm

The opportunity is that a freelance designer who has a granular understanding of the print / web process has a huge competitive advantage over one that doesn't. If they also get the training to be able to run their own business the chance of success is that much better.

Given that small, medium business keeps on growing and is constantly renewing universe, the outlook for a hard working young person in doing a real business service for that sector is actually very bright. Producing, managing, designing and selling print/web marketing campaigns to small and medium business should continue to do fine.

The irony is that the easiest way to get hired is by having the experience of running even a moderately successful business.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 20, 2009 at 9:12am

Just wanted to repost something I found at PrintJunkies.net..I think it might give everyone a much better sense of the job acquisition process on the ground in the entreprenerial space. Given that it's the growing part of the job market, it I think it's important to note that It's not about filling out a job application with a posting of your certificates or grade point average or tested competencies... To see more examples, you can probably find them at Craig's list.

"Anybody know anyone looking for a cool job selling digital banners, trade show graphics, fleet graphics, glass printing, 16' wide output, architectural graphics, etc.? If so, give me a shout. There is a company in the Kalamazoo, MI area looking for just such a person with, of course, experience. One super thing about this job, among many other things, is that it is a work-from-home job. So, let me know--candice@edoctalent.com is my email address. Thanks!!!"

Permalink Reply by Brian Regan on April 20, 2009 at 10:14am

Would be interesting to spend time looking at personality type testing to uncover what types of companies people would have success working within. The talk here of small business is excellent, but I find a lot of people are not cut out for it. They would rather be a sat a large seemingly safe firm. Mind you there are just as many that love the way small business works and adapt well to it.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 21, 2009 at 9:02am

Brian, Very good point. It would be very interesting to even do a quick Myers Brigg using one of the free testing sites the web. We did it in a class at Parsons years ago to help us form good oproject teams. It turned out that almost everyone in the class came out with the designers profile. I guess that biases my outlook. On the other hand when I was working in a bottom of the pyramid high school, I had the senior class in the auditorium. These are kids that almost 50% are not going to graduate on time. Among a number of other questions i asked, "Who wants to be your own own boss someday?" Around 90% of the hands shot up.

Meanwhile, the security of the "large" company started disappearing when the globals started firing people who expect they had security. And the kids who were going into I banking are now mostly looking for a new field. From what I read it's about non profits, government service, teach for America and starting their own business.

And in the every business I know, the qualitites they are looking for are the focus, responsibility, communication skills that are critical for entreprenuerial success. So the way i see it, frame the course of study for entrepreneurialism, learn what you need to learn to make the world a better place. That's what kids want. That's what the world needs. And that's where the real opportunities are for earning wealth. I see it as a win-win-win. And passes the "why wouldn't I do that?" test.

Brian Regan said:

Would be interesting to spend time looking at personality type testing to uncover what types of companies people would have success working within. The talk here of small business is excellent, but I find a lot of people are not cut out for it. They would rather be a sat a large seemingly safe firm. Mind you there are just as many that love the way small business works and adapt well to it.

Permalink Reply by Dr Joe Webb on April 21, 2009 at 10:17am

I taught a lot of this stuff back in the day when I would teach business and organizational behavior, and now that I have almost two decades away from the formal classroom and have moved to other things, I would suggest that personality and aspiration evaluations are points in time, and rigid use of them often implies that people and their interaction with their circumstances cannot change over time. There are times when people are "ready" to be entrepreneurs and they fail, and there are times when they are not, and they succeed. I have come to know that people do change, they are resilient when they need to be, even though the core of their personalities expressed in business interactions may remain intact.

Today's creative entrepreneurship is a richer opportunity than before. It's based on networking relationships, personally and electronically, unlike the freelancing of the past. There was a time when a designer had to work for a design firm to have access to all of the tools and personal interactions to succeed as a designer. Dare I say we are almost at a stage where a design firm could be a bunch of creative people meeting at Starbucks with their computers and then going on their merry ways to work with their portions of the job, communicating electronically in between, and then gathering again.

Non-entrepreneurial creatives latch onto these "pods" and belong to a few of them at a time, depending on what projects need their talents. It is in these relationships that they learn the culture of being on their own. This means that many of those personality test results will change around the edges as people adapt to their new environment. The recently fired "accidental" entrepreneur often leads to a different set of professional skills and a new way of interacting with clients and peers.

The nature of specialized knowledge implies that long term positions in established businesses is not the way it was. The only stability is to stay current in your craft and keep working the networks they start in their training in college or other organization. We do not yet understand in full the effect of constant connectivity (iPhone, Blackberry, Internet) and social media on the nature of creative entrepreneurial activities. There have "always" been things like guru.com or elance.com, but I do not think they are any where near the sea change created by a Facebook-connected freelance environment.

Permalink Reply by Brian Regan on April 21, 2009 at 11:02am

Personality testing in my mind looks at the "nature" part of a person and not the "nurture". SInce I feel people are generally not who they are until their late 20's the testing is best used to help apply knowledge and skills. Developing flexible people with a belief that their personal role is to always grow and change and adapt is pinnacle for their future.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 22, 2009 at 7:46am

Brian,
The thing is that a "test" does not imply a static condition that one carries through life. It merely gives a snapshot of where a person is at a particular time and place. There is good evidence to suggest that the same thing is even true of IQ tests. They have been wrongly interpreted as a non changeable fact. The reality is that like any test it is a snapshot.

But the value is that a snapshot is a great data point to understand the present moment. Learning happens in the present moment. Careers happen in a never ending series of present moments.

The point is that education is a process of taking a student from where they are to where they need to go. That's the "nurture" part. The real skill of an entrepreneur is continuous learning of new ways and new people in the service of getting from "here to where they need to go."

Permalink Reply by Brian Regan on April 22, 2009 at 9:12am

Maybe I was brain washed by the vendor, but I am certified to administer a personality test called Predictive index and it has a knack for picking up pieces of peoples personalities that are what seem to be natural defining characteristics. I dont see them as snap shot in the slightest. Those may nature vs nurture comment.

Permalink Reply by Michael Josefowicz on April 23, 2009 at 8:44am

Brian,
I think it's the difference between being a professional and an DIY amateur. I'm positive that you would make a much better estimate of what's really going on with a person. If I were making a high stakes decision myself, I would want a professional's judgment to help me take a good guess about what is really going to work for me.

But, if it's true that an IQ score can change at different times after different experiences for the same person, then I think that means that every score has to be carefully judged. No doubt it is measuring something real, but you need an experienced person to figure out exaclty what the measurement means.

Maybe a useful way to think about it is a DIY gets a snapshot, a more experienced user gets a video, and a professional gets an oil painting. The point is that the oil painting can capture what is going on underneath the surface appearance. It's better than either a snapshot or a video. But, in any case, it's only an approximation of what a person is going to make of their lives. It's where you start but not so much a predictor of what is going to happen for a specific person at a series of specific decision points. Those decisions are the nurture part.

It's like the relationship between DNA and health outcomes. DNA is a given. How it plays out is not. I think it's also like the relationship between a genotype and phenotype. The gene doesn't change. The physical manifestation of the gene is infinitely variable but is sensitively dependent on what works best in the proximate environment.

Brian Regan said:

Maybe I was brain washed by the vendor, but I am certified to administer a personality test called Predictive index and it has a knack for picking up pieces of peoples personalities that are what seem to be natural defining characteristics. I dont see them as snap shot in the slightest. Those may nature vs nurture comment.

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