The labor market has always been one of push and pull, give and take, and ups and downs. Some years, there are more jobs than people to fill them, and others, more people seeking than actual positions to fill. For the past few years, the industry has been in the first scenario, trying — and often failing — to find new people to fill open positions. But that is starting to shift, due to a few factors.
“In many areas of the country, the past decade or more, employers have been scrambling to fill positions” Adriane Harrison, vice president of human relations consulting at PRINTING United Alliance, says. “In 2026, there may be less turnover as fewer people leave their jobs because they perceive economic uncertainty. Also, more people are looking for manufacturing and other non-office jobs. All of this should mean more good candidates open to recruitment and applying for positions.”
Jules VanSant, who is chairperson of the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF), partner at Bubble & Hatch, and executive director at Two Sides North America, has been seeing the same trend starting to take shape.
“This last year, there’s been a lot of pause, a lot of uncertainty,” VanSant notes. “There’s been caution in hiring, caution in letting people go, just seeing what you could do with what you had. And these times have happened in the past, where instead of getting excited about investing in new talent, you’re kind of pulling back and only filling if you really need to. I think with the mergers and acquisitions that continue to happen, there’s a lot of movement in labor as well, with people that are experienced [being displaced].”
And that’s not just in the printing industry. Harrison stresses, “For instance, UPS cut [48,000] jobs in 2025, and recently announced another 30,000 jobs cuts in 2026. Amazon is cutting 30,000 jobs. The first round was 14,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025, and the second round is coming soon. This is the tip of the iceberg — there will be a lot of large companies scaling back their workforces. This is a real opportunity for our industry. We can offer careers — not just jobs — for some of these displaced workers.”
And that’s especially important as the wage gap continues to get wider. VanSant points out that every year, more and more workers are retiring, taking with them institutional knowledge. But at the same time, technologies are changing so rapidly, that perhaps that knowledge isn’t as valuable as it was in the past. As new employees enter the space, they bring trust in and capability with technology that older generations may struggle to keep up with.
At the same time, every successful printer needs experienced people who understand print at a fundamental level to ensure everything works well together; having a bunch of presses and people working without considering the processes before or after them translates to inefficiencies, low quality, and mistakes. A stronger workforce can be built by balancing younger generations’ keenness to learn with the experience of older generations who cut their teeth on plates and offset presses.
“In my previous lives, when I worked at a flexo free press and platemaking facility, we went from manual film stripping, and everyone in that department needed to either learn how to use a computer or they didn’t have a job anymore,” VanSant says. “And a lot of them were like, ‘I don’t want to go there.’
“I think this is a different time, but it’s a similar situation where people that work on big presses are now being asked to work on something that’s really more digitally driven. It’s a different world, right? Do they want to learn something like that? And do you need that level of expertise now, with some of the software incorporated into these pieces of equipment? Or do you need somebody who’s a good communicator, who learns quickly, who’s physically capable?”
Read the rest of this article on Printing Impressions, a publication of PRINTING United Alliance, ASI’s strategic partner.
