Printing Pulse

Shipments

We can now officially pronounce 2019 a mighty fine year for the printing industry. The value of printing shipments for December 2019 was down from November—as we expected it would be—but not down as much as has been the case in recent years. At $6.95 billion, December shipments were down from November’s $7.03 billion, but far above the depths of 2017 and 2018. It’s not far below 2016’s $7.10 billion. So all in all December 2019 was an above-average December. 

Caption: As a result, total shipments for 2019 came in at $82.6 billion, an improvement over 2018’s $81.0 billion, and the best year since 2016’s $88.7 billion. 

What are we predicting for 2020? We are forecasting a little more of the same, at least for the near future. This is an election year—and a major and highly contentious one—which always helps goose various kinds of print, be they screen shops pumping out lawn signs, wide-format shops printing posters or commercial shops printing flyers and direct mail pieces. Yes, social media plays an increasingly large role in today’s elections (2008 was the first election where social media played an inordinately large role in campaigns), but there is still a very big place for print. 

We are forecasting somewhat of a stasis, if not a modest increase, in the short term. (We are looking at 2020 coming in at ~$83.1 billion, according to our "Printing Outlook 2020" report.) Some qualitative factors—both positive and negative—we have to keep in mind as we look ahead:

• A potentially slowing economy (negative) 
• Growth of specialty/industrial/textile printing (positive)
• Flexo renaissance and growth in packaging (positive)
• Further industry consolidation (negative)
• Election years (positive)
• The coming of 5G (negative)

It has been remarked at recent shows that it “felt like 1997” again. That may be true, but some of us remember what happened only three years later, when we peaked at $156 billion and then subsequently lost one-third of the industry’s value over the course of the next decade. We’re not trying to be Gloomy Gus (or indeed Dr. Doom), but as the old chestnut goes, “Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it.”

Graphic Arts Employment

In December 2019, overall printing employment dropped -0.2% from November, and on a year-over-year basis, it is down -2.4%. Production employment was down -0.5% from November to December (and -4.4% Y/Y) while non-production employment was down -0.1% from November to December—but actually up +1.7% Y/Y.

This is nothing new, and is the continuation of an ongoing trend. Indeed, in our "Printing Outlook 2020" report, the employee-related challenge surround finding sales people, not so much production staff. And specific hiring plans for 2020 are more sales-centric than production-centric, suggesting a few things:

1) Recent historical challenges surrounding finding skilled production employees have largely resolved themselves.

2) Shops are relying either on more automation and/or the ability for one production person to operate different kinds of equipment (thanks to the “push-button operability of a lot of digital printing and binding equipment).

3) Pre- and post-press functions are becoming increasingly integrated into the printing process, requiring less dedicated production staff.

There is likely some combination of these factors taking place. 

Elsewhere, publishing employment dropped -0.3% from November to December, but year-over-year grew +1.3%. Newspapers again continued to take a hit employment-wise: down -9.0% from November 2018 to November 2019. Periodicals were not as bad, with a -2.9% decline in employment from November to November.

The creative markets, as is the fashion, are doing better than printing and publishing, and even direct mail was up +1.7% November/November.

The traditional hotspot, public relations, is becoming less of a hotspot in recent months, and was only up +2.7% from November 2018 to November 2019. (Back in May, we reported that PR employment had been up +6.7% from March 2018 to March 2019. That level of employment growth in PR has not been repeated since.) Among agencies, employment was up +0.6%, and if we back out PR, agency employment was up +0.3%. Graphic design employment was up +1.1%.

Automation may be a solution to the problem of finding elusive employees, if indeed production employees are as elusive as we have come to believe. Sales people seem to be the challenge, at least as far as our survey is concerned, and it turns out that automation my help in that regard as well, as some top-performing print businesses rely on web-to-print, online storefronts and search engine optimization in lieu of human sales people.