Media Jobs Sink as Marketing Services Jobs Rise

Adage:

U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in advertising/marketing-services -- agencies and other firms that provide marketing and communications services to marketers -- broke a record in November (769,000). Marketing consulting powered that growth.

Is there a disconnect in the data here (PDF)? Yes, on the surface. However, it's also possible that more advertising and marketing programs are going direct-to-consumer, bypassing the media altogether. The upshot is to watch as pros who spent their entire careers in media start landing jobs at digital, PR and ad agencies. The need for content specialists is rising, not abating. Many of the jobs are still around but they may simply be migrating industries.

Also noteworthy, AdAge also reports that the local business sections of many newspapers are drying up.

Comments

[Aurelius Tjin]

This is obviously a great post! Thanks for the valuable insights you have just shared here.

[Allan]

Amazing what Rupert Murdoch has done to position News Corp. as an important player in digital media. News Corp. is one of the few big newspaper publishers that have made the transition. It'll be interesting to see if his ad revenues in the digital media division will be large enough to offset the lost revenues from the newspapers.

[Open English]

These are definitely migrating industries, like you said. It's just the way the world is going nowadays. There is more competition, and more need for marketing experts.