HR Trends
October Trends
Hiring and Recalls
Of those surveyed from the printing and graphic communications sector, 88.9 percent forecast hiring and recalls within their organizations will remain fixed over the course of the next month.
However, 11.1 percent of employers anticipate a decline in the number of hirings or recalls and no (0%) responses were received to indicate that employers expect hirings or recalls will be up over the next month.
Lay-offs
In terms of layoffs the majority printing and graphic communications organizations represented in these survey results expect layoffs within their organizations to be stable over the next month—with 77.8 percent of respondents expecting their layoffs to not increase of decrease.
Training
The majority of respondents (44.4%) said their investment in training is the same as it was last year this time. 22.2 percent responded training investments would be lower and 33.3 percent reported a higher investment in training this year compared to last.
Challenges facing the industry and the human resource implications
The following quote provided by one of the respondents this month succinctly summarizes the challenges currently facing the printing and graphic communications industry:
“Bottom line is that there is not enough work for us. Clients are purchasing less, so sales volumes are down. At the same time, pricing of jobs is more competitive so margins are depressed. We have already reduced staff and hours of work; next steps may be to eliminate shifts on some equipment, but that threatens our ability to service existing customer work.”
Additionally, employers note that the limited pool of skilled applicants is impacting their ability to fill necessary positions in their establishments.
