6 months layed off-Now What?

[MartinK]

If its any consolation I've been out of work from my last printing job for more that a year. Unemployment is running out in a few weeks. Nobody is hiring. Was in printing for 30 years. People say hang in there! I don't think printing is dead. Look at all the labels and boxes with printing. Commercial printing is dying. 25 years prepress. Gone but not forgotten.

[plategirl]

Take the damn job, man. At least it's something coming in. Are you kidding me? You'd pay a daycare $13.00 an hour, but not yourself?

Go to social services, and ask about daycare. Or a church. Catholic Social Services. Just. Do. It.

Then count your blessings. I was made JANITOR by my employer because he didn't want to pay me over $7.25 an hour. So a pressman got my job--same job--making a LOT more than me, though I'm told for him, the $10 an hour he's making represented a loss in salary. A loss!! And he only had one years' experience in prepress!!

Take the damn job. PLEASE. I'd give ANYTHING to make $13.00 an hour. Post the link for that job here, and I'll take a look-see. I'd get on a press, yup, in a New York minute.

[tapdn]

I have been in this business for 30 years. I've seen prepress go from stat cameras, film, light tables, highly skilled 4 color journeyman strippers to CTP, so my skills have had to change over the years. The future is automation. You love printing and want to stay in this crazy business then you must train yourself in auto workflows and publishing for the internet. Evolve!
There will always be box/ package printing.

[gordo]

There will always be box/ package printing.

Printed where the products are made and put into the box/packages, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. :- (

gordo

[oxburger]

Printed where the products are made and put into the box/packages, China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. :- (

gordo

And if it's food packaging, any left over paper can be ground up and used IN the food products, thus making them a low carbon emission and green friendly operation.....

[prepressguru]

I agree print is dying very fast. Look at what is happening to the newspapers. I use to run Komori's. When the shop I worked in, closed after more than forty years in business, I should have gotten out of printing. That was back in 2001, but being blind to reality, I took a job as a feeder on a five color Komori.When I was laid off in September, 2008, I finally threw in the towel. I went back to college, and have started to study accounting. The sooner you can go back to college, and transition to a new career the better. With the world going in a green direction, paper products are going to be reduced big time.Best of luck to you, the time to transition to a new career is now.

John I agree with you 100% I am actually doing the same thing, going back to school to retrain myself. Its funny you mention accounting, because I was considering it to. But choose something else.

Print is shrinking and dieing, we need to moving into a industry which is growing. The green industry when it comes around would be great idea.

Good luck!

[David Kunkel]

Surprised no one suggested this angle yet, but your prepress skills are highly valued as a preflight expert, troubleshooter, and as a teacher. Suggest you look into prepress-color consulting/print brokering/teaching as a way to cash in on your expertise.

I'm a 53 y.o. creative designer who got a serious DTP/Prepress education while working in-house at a large Buffalo, NY printer. I now design in-house at a corporation, where my combination of art skills and print/DTP tech exp has been very appreciated. I'm not doing prepress anymore but I've also made good money off those skills, plus teaching/training. See if your local education institutions have a print program you can join as an educator.

[fizzDIGG_dot_com]

I am new to this forum, so I won't post any links as I need to read the forum rules in depth.
It might be a little late for those of you that are in desperate times, but nobody's job is secure for life.
We need take it upon ourselves for find other sources of income to give us a buffer to tough times.

For those of you that are out of a job at the moment, don't just look at the print industry. This might mean you do a job you don't particularly enjoy or like for that matter. An income is welcome from any source.

I am sure some of you might criticise that it is easy for me to make these comments as I don't know what some people are going through. That may be true, and I hope I never am in that situation. For this reason we all need to have other sources of income.

I am not talking about millions of dollars, it could be an extra $20 a day to start with.

I believe that all the parents out there like me, have a responsibility to ensure our families are financially stable. We all are aware not to place all our eggs in one basket when it comes to investments, why don't we apply the same logic to careers?

There are many other ways to earn an additional income. Instead of watching TV tonight when you go home, have a think about what skills and knowledge you have built up over the years and how you can use them to help other for an additional income.

We all have the power, it is the drive that most of us are lacking.

Good luck and make sure to build your knowledge.

How was that for my first post, a bit too much maybe. I just feel strongly about it as I had a long debate yesterday with colleague who was complaining about his super.

[cmitchprint]

I feel for all who have lost their jobs in the printing industry. Quality Press in Birmingham bit it about 3 weeks ago. I see closures everywhere. A shop across the river (N. Alabama) just shut down after being in business 35 years. A couple of other shops have 'merged' which is a nice way of saying 'They couldn't make it and sold to someone who could'. Printing is MISERABLE here. Our paper suppliers have been crying the blues for months now. The plant I manage has seen a revenue drop of over 40% in the last year. We've had to lean out our workforce and only have 3 full timers, now.

I've witnessed a migration to on demand digital. We are presently installing an 'on-demand' shop because I cannot sell offset, anymore. People don't want 5000 of anything, anymore. They want 100 of this and 500 of that. You just can't run an offset shop with multicolor presses and hope to live much longer. Since we are a book printer, our problem is even more complicated. We have customers who want us to publish their book and assume ALL the risk, which we can't do, anymore. We are going to offer a system where THEY will assume most of the risk but very few copies have to be produced. That is where on-demand will play a major role. If the book stinks, we're not out all the production costs. If it sells, then we'll print it on offset. Either way, I've turned down customers who want 100 books for the LAST time. I'm not pissing away any more of our business.

I see a trend where shops either CHANGE or they die. If a shop doesn't go digital in some manner, that shop WILL die. It's just a sign of the times. I personally don't see digital being a long term answer, either, since every Tom, Dick and Harry has a color copier of some kind and are doing their own low quantity printing. I fully expect to see myself asking, 'What am I going to do with all these presses?' in five years. In less than 10, I might be asking, 'What happened to my job?'.

Unless a shop has a few corporate contracts where they're printing a bazillion copies of annual reports or handbooks, they're not going to make it.

[rbailleu]

be positive. it will get better. it may not be like it was, but it will get better.