The US commercial printing industry finished the year with 439,900 employees, down -11,200 compared to 2015. The number of production employees was down -3,100, a -1.0% decrease. Non-production employees represented the biggest change, down -8,400 (-6.0%).
This is likely the effects of consolidation, where administrative and management positions are eliminated for duplication but many of the production personnel arrange. It must be noted that there are many of these eliminated positions because of closures such as bankruptcies, but the balance of production versus other indicates that something larger is going on.
