Overall printing employment dropped from August to September 2018, and on a year-over-year basis is down -1.5%. Likewise, production employment dropped a scosh from August to September, and is down -2.6% from September 2017. It’s the usual story that we have often heard told: consolidation and difficulty in hiring, at least at the production level. Non-production employment stayed the same from August to September, and is even up +0.9% from September 2017. Another issue is automation; but is automation the cause of the decline in graphic arts unemployment, or are companies turning to automation because production employees are hard to find? From what we have heard, primarily the latter, but may lead to the former. 

In publishing, employment dropped from 718,300 in August to 717,400 in September. Publishing employment is down slightly (-0.2%) from September 2017.

The creative markets, as always, are doing better. From August 2017 to August 2018, PR employment was up +6.8% (they almost always lead the pack), and agencies were up +1.3%—however, if we back PR out, agency employment growth drops to +0.6%. PR has become perhaps the most important component of today’s marketing and promotion efforts, as they are often the ones running social media. Graphic design employment was down -1.5% from August 2017 to August 2018, and direct mail advertising  was down -4.3%.