Last Updated: March 27, 2000
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Personnel
Why you can’t find folks for the newsroom
The good economy is part of the picture, but the lower
birth rates in the ’70s play a part, too; experts disagree on whether it’s
going to get better or not
By LaBarbara Bowman
The Army, the Navy and newspaper newsrooms share a problem: finding
a few good men and women.
Why? Demographics. Young people make up a smaller percentage of the
work force than they did 10 years ago because a lot of young women didn’t
have babies in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Add to that a flourishing economy and the Internet tornado and you end
up with editors — especially editors at smaller papers — grasping for people
to fill newsroom vacancies.
“When we think about births from 1965 to ’67, they were falling,” said
demographer Hazel Reinhardt, Director of Market Research for the Media
Management Center at Northwestern University. “The smallest birth year
was 1973. These people are 26 this year.”
“They spiked up in 1968 and then plunged down very deep to ’73. There
is no reason to look for a lot of relief in the next couple of years,”
said Reinhardt
Harold Hodgkinson, another demographer disagrees.
“It isn’t the number of bodies. They aren’t appropriately trained, and
they aren’t in the right place.”
As you may have guessed, they’re both right.
Let’s look at 18- to 44-year-olds. The heart of the work force. There
were 107.3 million of these folks in 1990, 110.8 million in 1999, and there
will be an estimated 116.7 million in 2004, according to U.S. Census figures
compiled by SRC, a marketing consulting company based in California.
What’s the problem? Those total numbers mask a decline in young workers.
For example, in 1990 there were 26.7 million 18- to 24-year-olds, but nine
years later, this group had shrunk to about 25.6 million. They should grow
to an estimated 26.9 million by 2004.
Likewise, 25- to 34-year-olds numbered 43.1 million in 1990, ebbed to
about 40.4 million last year and are expected to rise to an estimated 42.5
million in 2004
What does this mean?
-
The 4.1 percent nationwide unemployment rate for December was tied for
the the lowest rate since January 1970. In booming metropolitan areas like
Washington and its suburbs it was even lower.
-
Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, raised interest rates recently,
in large part because of concern about the economy literally running out
of workers to fill all the jobs being created.
-
Some companies like Freddie Mac, the mortgage-financing company, are giving
away trips and prizes to employees who refer new workers to the company.
The harder the position is to fill, the better the prize.
-
Congress passed a huge pay raise for members of the armed forces to keep
the good people in.
“There are fewer people in Generation X to draw from and there are better
opportunities for Gen Xers, so it is difficult to get or keep quality people,”
said independent pollster John Zogby, of Utica. N.Y.
In this competitive market, there is another problem for newspapers:
their image. “The prevailing notion among young people is that newspapers
are past prime,” Reinhardt said. “Many young people don’t see newspapers
that are growing and expanding where you’re going to have a fast promotion
future. What could change that is somehow making newspapers more prestigious.”
Zogby said that among 20- and 30-year-olds, “there isn’t a sense that
I’m in an entry-level position today and I can work my way up to the top.
I don’t need to stay here to work my way to the top. I can find a better
opportunity this week.”
“Why be a reporter when I can start my own information source? ... When
I have the power with my own laptop?” Zogby asked.
When will the numbers get better? The next big generation, the Echo
Boomers are coming but they are now mostly in elementary school. “We should
have our largest class graduating from high school in 2008. That generation
is almost as large as the Boomers. And they are supplemented by immigration,
so it’s really larger,” Reinhardt said.
The leading edge of the Echo Boomers begins trickling out of college
this year. Think of Chelsea Clinton, who graduates from Stanford next year,
as the leading edge of the Echo Boomers.
So what are newspaper editors to do in the meantime:
-
“Newspapers are going to have to make decisions: How important is human
talent to us? ... What are we willing pay? ... The challenge is at the
smaller- to medium-sized papers those salaries are so low that you may
never get the inflow of the potential that the industry needs,” Reinhardt
said.
-
“Start marketing to the potential journalists in high school,” said Hodgkinson,
a member of the Newspaper Association of America Foundation board.
-
Improve retention, which reduces the number of new employees needed and
saves on recruiting and advertising costs.
Reinhardt has another suggestion: “The industry has to find a way to spotlight,
lift up what makes this a worthwhile career and way to spend your life.
For many young people, being a journalist is like being part of the problem.
In the ’70s it was viewed as being part of the solution.”
Bowman is ASNE’s diversity director.
