The recession's not over yet - employment in the media industry

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June 1, 1993 by Keith J. Kelly

Anyone tracking job statistics from the Department of Labor knows that the recession is far from over in the media industry--all segments are operating at close to historic five-year lows. In our industry, by the end of February, there were only 124,600 people at work. That's on a par with November 1987, when there were about 125,000 people working in the field. The peak month was November 1990, with 130,800 people employed.

If we needed any more proof that we're still slogging along, there was the mid-April news that Conde Nast was closing down HG (House & Garden). When Mr. Conde Nast was alive, House & Garden was key to establishing the company's standard of excellence.

While most of the people at Conde Nast's newly acquired Architectural Digest were breathing a sigh of relief that their jobs were saved, the same could not be said of the rest of their one-time fellow employees at Knapp Communications. In Los Angeles, a full-scale blood bath was underway as most of the business staff and back-shop operations at the old Knapp were being wiped out--some 50 people in all.

In New York, we wonder if our good friend Bernard Leser, president of Conde Nast, misspoke somewhat when he advanced his reason for folding HG rather than let it return to its populist roots as a rival to Hearst's House Beautiful. "We considered it, but felt it was unacceptable to us as a company and to the staff and the readers," Leser told "Folio: First Day" on April 20.

I can understand the corporation--and perhaps the readers and advertisers--not wanting to go downmarket. But the staff? Come on, Bernie! I'm sure the staff would have gladly suffered being employed at a somewhat more downscale magazine. The alternative? No job in what remains the worst media recession we have seen in decades.