There was a recent article in ProPrint by Samuel Moss giving advice on how to interest Gen Y on the printing industry. It’s a laudable goal and one we all need to think about if we want to have people to replace our staff or ourselves in our businesses.
But I don’t know if in good conscience I could put the case for a career in print to a Gen Y. Sure, there are still opportunities and you can still make money, but for most of us I just don’t think you will be able to say the same in 20 years, when Gen Y will have mortgages and kids.
A constant theme is trying to find ways to reduce print and paper use. Our products and processes are seen as costly and old-school and people are always looking to replace them with internet-based alternatives.
If you doubt me, think about how much carbonless you bought 10 years ago and look at your figures today. Handheld devices killed that market. The second a business card app gains critical mass in the App Store, watch them become retro chic ‘essentials’.
I don’t think this drive to reduce the use of print is going to stop, and this will have a massive effect on the number of viable print businesses and jobs in the next 10 to 15 years. Given this, how can you tell someone in their twenties to commit to what is most likely going to be a dead-end by the time they hit 40?
If you’re not already begrudgingly agreeing with me, you might be thinking only someone with no commitment to print would be so bloodless about our future. But I’m third generation – my grandfather was a letterpress man and my father, uncle and brother were all printers. As a child, I spent school nights quarter binding and applying double-sided tape to presentation folders for my dad at five cents apiece. Print is in my blood and being the current managing director of a company my family has owned since 1978, I am very invested in this industry’s health.
But then I look to my own son, who at 10 is at the age where he wants to come and work with me when he grows up. No chance will I let that happen. I want him to have a job in a growth industry, not one that is all about who can manage the decline best.
And I’m not alone. This topic comes up quite often when I am talking to other people my age in the industry – would you let your kids follow you into print? And I’m yet to have someone say yes.
It becomes a different matter when you start thinking of print as communications companies first and press owners second. Plenty of future there – the problem is, if you want to run a communications business, chaining yourself to a million-dollar mortgage on a press is unnecessary. Look at the new approach Snap has – their new franchises have dropped the print part altogether.
Print is still here and it won’t be going away for a while. But I doubt any Gen Ys will be retiring from careers in print at the age of 70, and leading them to think they will is just wrong.
[Related: More Industry Insider columns]
Baden Kirgan is the MD of Jeffries Printing Services and Black House Comics
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