Journalists rank job future prospects as most unstable in national study of job security
Journos are among the most fearful for their jobs in Roy Morgan study
Journalists and writers are among the most pessimistic Australians when rating their job security, alongside cleaners, housekeepers and scientists.
The survey by Roy Morgan revealed what many in media already know – due to redundancies continuing across the board throughout media companies, journalists and writers have little confidence that their jobs are safe.
While an estimated 11.5m Australians currently hold down a job of some form, the survey found that 6% of employed workers rated their job security as ‘very poor’.
Twenty one per cent of journalists and writers surveyed said they did not have the confidence that their roles would remain safe, making them the second lowest level of employment confidence behind vocational education writers – 22% of which fear for their jobs.
Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine, said the view of journalists was not unexpected.
“With most major news media, including Fairfax, News Corp and ABC, cutting back their editorial divisions over the period, it’s no surprise that journalists are among the most insecure about their future employment in the current organisation,” Levine said.
The review covers job satisfaction and the relationship between satisfaction and employees’ perceptions of pay, recognition, security and opportunities, as well as cultural issues such as focus on continual improvement, training, customer service and how employees’ ideas are handled by management.
While a dark cloud hovers over the future of journalists and writers, the jobs that were considered the safest included school principals, chief executives and managing directors, police and religious ministers.
The survey interviewed 25,548 Australians aged 14 and over.
Seventeen per cent of those surveyed rated their job security as ‘good’ while another 34% described it as ‘very good’.
The survey comes as Fairfax negotiates with the MEAA over a fresh round of redundancies, with 120 editorial jobs to be cut by the publisher.
The announcement of the redundancies last month led to wildcat strikes by staff in Sydney and Melbourne.
Simon Canning
