As the newspaper industry faces ongoing disruption, the number of journalism jobs will continue to decline over the next decade. More than one-third of journalism jobs will be lost between 2002 and 2031, according to this report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
Stop the Presses explores the transformation of the journalism profession and ranks journalism and communications programs at 850 institutions by their payoff for graduates in the labor market.
Projected job losses for journalists are the result of decades of decline, the report states, primarily due to newspaper downsizing and closures. Since the 1980s, average employment by newspaper publishers has fallen by 63 percent. In recent decades, by contrast, average employment increased by more than six times in internet publishing, broadcasting, and web search portals, and by nearly 9 percent in broadcasting (except the Internet). However, these gains were not sufficient to offset job losses at newspapers.
As the number of available jobs dwindles, reporters and editors face a competitive job market, with just 15 percent of journalism majors becoming editors or news analysts, reporters, and correspondents early in their careers.