Printing Sales, Labor Market Data at Odds

The ongoing expansion of printing sales is at odds with labor market reports that show continued—and recently even larger—declines in printing employment. The initially reported spring pick-up in printing jobs has been revised to a small job cut by the Department of Labor.

Note that average hourly earnings are significantly higher in August, usually a sign of more overtime, and some of the "missing" printing jobs will eventually be found in later labor market reports. The monthly survey of employers (the data shown in these tables) recorded 433,000 fewer new jobs in July and August than the monthly survey of households (the source of the unemployment rate), so a catch-up in jobs reported by employers is expected.

Also, the employer survey often misses job changes at small companies for several months until the survey sample is updated. Further, some of the recently added printing jobs will never appear in the printing industry job count, as printing work is increasingly being done outside of businesses that are predominately focused on printing. New equipment—especially digital machinery—has permitted shifting printing to office supply retailers, corporate offices, and computer data service firms.