CLICK TO ENLARGE. Unemployment rates of journalism bachelor’s degree recipients when they returned questionnaire compared to U.S. labor force data. U.S. figures represent seasonally adjusted unemployment rates averaged across June of the shown year to May of the following year.
Source: Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates; US Bureau of Labor Statistics

OAKLAND, Calif. — The 2008 journalism job market may have been the toughest one up until then for journalism school graduates and today’s could be even worse.

Word is getting around and J-school enrollment, which had been growing, could decline, especially at the undergraduate levels. Enrollment in graduate programs tends to rise whenever the economy falls as people look for ways to hide out from the job market and keep some career momentum.

Dr. Tudor Vlad, assistant director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research in the Grady College, highlighted these findings and others at a conference Oct. 10.

TOUGHEST JOB MARKET IN MORE THAN 20 YEARS

For more than 20 years, the Cox Center has been tracking data on such things as journalistic employment. Seldom has the market been this tough.

New grads need to know that, as they run frustrating job searches, the problem may not at all be with them, but with a very, very tough market. Perspective helps.

Vlad presented a small part of the survey’s extensive findings at a “Rethinking Journalism Through the Lens of Diversity,” organized by San Francisco State University’s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism.

The annual Grady surveys, one on enrollment and one on graduates, cover everything from who is entering schools and at what level to the difference between wages in union and non-union shops. Results are traditionally rolled out at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. Take survey reports are must-reads for journalists and journalism educators.

A TRAGIC YEAR FOR PEOPLE STARTING JOURNALISM CAREERS

Offstage, Vlad described the picture for journalism graduates as “tragic.”

In 2008, the survey showed, tough times on the job market left journalism grads less optimistic about their careers and more skeptical about the long-term chances for the survival of major media industries. 2008 was “the first year the graduates expressed concern about, let’s say, traditional media,” Vlad said. It takes months to compile the survey results, as Grady researchers must contact more than 400 schools, often multiple times, to get a good response rate.

Also from the conference:
News media must leverage diversity, audience to thrive.

Those same job-market forces likely contributed to increased enrollment in graduate programs, where experienced journalists or frustrated new graduates might be seeking new careers or the kind of momentum they were not finding in the job market. Vlad said, “graduate enrollment tracks the economic cycles almost perfectly.” A downturn in the economy sends people back to school.

This has contributed to an overall growth in J-school enrollment. However, slight declines in first- and second-year undergraduates could portend a decline in journalism school enrollment overall.

These findings come from the report on trends among graduates:

• The percentage of journalism and mass communication bachelor’s degree recipients with at least one job offer on graduation was down sharply from a year earlier, as was the average number of job offers.
  
• More of the bachelor’s degree recipients reported only being able to get a telephone job interview than the year before, and fewer were able to get at least one in-person interview.
  
• Only 60.4% of the 2008 bachelor’s degree recipients reported being employed full-time when they returned the survey instrument, down nearly 10 points from the 70.2% figure of a year earlier.
  

SOME STRATEGIES FOR COPING

Salaries for those who did land journalism jobs were a little higher with cable and Web companies, Vlad said, but benefits had been reduced across all nine categories measured, including medical and dental insurance and retirement.

Vlad offered a couple of strategies. The survey of graduates showed that public relations majors were considerably happier with their experiences in the job market. He believes that may be because they are more flexible about their career options and that they may be more entrepreneurial.

Those may be two areas that journalism students should go to school on in this job climate.

(Disclosure: A Ford Foundation grant paid for me to attend this conference. — Joe Grimm)

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