Recently, Fast Company interviewed Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist, to tap into her insights drawn from more than 930 million members and 63 million companies on the platform, what Fast Company calls “a treasure trove of hiring data and employment trends.” Let’s look at seven takeawaysfrom a conversation it co-hosted with Deloitte Cyber & Strategic Risk at the recent RSA Conference and what they might mean for the printing industry. For additional insights, WhatTheyThink interviewed Arnie Kahn, president of PrintLink, a graphic arts industry placement firm, who, in many cases, sees the printing industry bucking the national trends.

1. Overall hiring is slowing down.

The tech industry is being hit particularly hard. LinkedIn’s Kimbrough notes that, while the platform is showing a 30% decline in hiring vs. a year ago, among tech and media companies, hiring is declining even faster—50%.

If your hiring is slowing down, welcome to the club. But Kahn is not really seeing this in the printing industry. “Here at PrintLink, we are not getting the feeling that our clients are slow,” he says. “It is true that some companies, especially smaller ones, have become more halting and deliberate in their hiring. They may ask us to recruit for them, but when it comes time to making the actual hire, they tend to get nervous about the economy. In case things take a turn, they don’t want to over commit. But overall, we don’t see our clients slowing down.”

2. In some sectors, however, hiring is going gangbusters.

The hiring slowdown isn’t occurring in all sectors. In some industries, including healthcare, accommodation, oil and gas, and manufacturing, hiring is robust. In healthcare, Kimbrough describes providers as hiring “nonstop.”

Aggressive hiring means growing businesses. If you serve the B2B marketplace, these are industries you want to be targeting.

3. Remote jobs are drying up.

Although there is a high demand for remote work, Kimbrough says that only 11% of jobs on LinkedIn are now remote. This is down from 20% in March 2022.

Printing isn’t sexy, but remote work is. In fact, Kimbrough noted that 50% of the applications on LinkedIn are for remote work. If there are any functions within your company that can be done remotely, at least a portion of the time, this increases your value as an employer. If you have areas where you might not currently offer remote work, but could in order to attract (or retain) top talent, why not consider it? Many print shops found ways to allow non-production workers to remote in during the COVID-19 shutdowns. If revisiting those as remote or hybrid positions means attracting the best talent, why not do it?

Indeed, while LinkedIn sees remote work declining, Kahn sees the opposite occurring. In the printing industry, he sees remote work on the rise. Positions such as estimators, IT experts, software developers, and customer service representatives are increasingly being accommodated as remote positions. This not only makes the print shop more desirable as an employer, but expands the pool of potential hires to outside the shop’s geographic region.

4. Workers are investing in lifelong learning.

Today’s workforce is engaging in lifelong learning “as a path to career autonomy and competitiveness.” But rather than seeking this learning in more bookwork (such as by seeking MBAs or other advanced degrees), LinkedIn sees those looking to advance their careers as investing in practical, skills-based knowledge.

The promise of advancement has always been a carrot in the hiring process. Now we’re looking at practical skills, as well. What additional education or skills-based training are you offering as a carrot to draw in job seekers or retain the talent you have?

5. Employers are highlighting skills over education.

According to Kimbrough, LinkedIn has seen an increase in employers looking for specific skill sets (for example, project management or experience with JavaScript) rather than college degrees or previous job titles: “Such skills-based hiring leads to a bigger talent pool and allows companies to pull in underrepresented groups and different candidates, including younger and older candidates.”

Other than in production, how much of your hiring process is skills- rather than education-based? “We are seeing many companies in the printing industry accepting five to ten years on the job experience in lieu of a related degree,” says Kahn. “Among employers, we are also seeing a strong preference for those with military experience. They know those with military service tend to be more disciplined and motivated. They also tend to be more willing to make a geographic move since relocation is something they are used to.”

6. Artificial intelligence (AI) will disrupt the middle-tier jobs.

Previous technological disruptions displaced low-skills positions. Kimbrough notes that AI, however, is likely to disrupt employees in the “middle-skills tier,” such as middle managers, accountants, researchers, and copywriters. The rise of AI is another reason Kimbrough believes skills training is crucial. “Companies today have a responsibility to make sure they are bringing their workers along on the AI journey so they can upskill,” she says.

7. The gaps between women and men in leadership are growing.

While the early-career workforce is fairly evenly divided by gender, LinkedIn finds that women drop out by roughly 10 percentage points every 10 years: “By the time professionals are, say, 20 years into the workforce, 2.2 men move into leadership positions for every one woman.”

Here, too, Kahn sees the printing industry bucking national trends. He sees the number of women in managerial roles increasing over time, not decreasing. “Not just in sales, but in operations,” he says. “We’ve placed a number of women—highly skilled women—in production management roles that traditionally are predominantly male. This is both due to their high level of skill and also their interpersonal skills.”

In these cases, Kahn also notes that these women are earning salaries very comparable to men.

How do these trends line up with what you are seeing in your own company?