Employment Trends Outpace Market Stats

"How's business" in the print market now depends on your measuring stick. Employment is inching up after a prolonged decline but the market statistical reports from Washington show no recovery through April, while the NAPL Print Business Index has soared 34% since the low point early last year. The best interpretation is that the market is recovering with the rest of the economy—although more slowly—and will continue to do so for several more years.

Commercial printers are hiring again, with overall U.S. printing employment rising almost as quickly in March through May as total jobs. The labor market will remain on the loose side of average until well into next year, so wage gains will remain modest.

Finding new employees will not be a problem over the next year. The unemployment rate is nearly 7% for production workers (5.6% overall), and many of the 45,000 people laid off by printers in the last two years are still available. The Census Bureau measure of the dollar value of printing shipments and Federal Reserve Board measure of the unit volume of printing production are stagnant—1% to 2% below a year ago. New print shops are probably being missed; expect an upward revision. The large gain in the NAPL Index is a better measure of how broadly business is improving than how much it has improved—this type of index tends to slightly lead business activity.