Radio Jobs

Any of us who have worked in the business have obviously seen this is true, but the statistics bear out what we've come to believe. There simply are far fewer radio jobs than there used to be...

Number of radio jobs is down 25% since 2001...The really heavy damage began with the Great Recession, and the number of positions has kept falling since then. An industry that employed about 113,533 people in January 2001 is now down to about 86,800 (in September 2016). The number even sank to 84,717 last April before recovering somewhat. The BLS stats about the newspaper industry earn the headlines, as they should. But radio employment in this century shows the toll of the recession. Radio’s topline revenue fell 9% in 2008 and an even more painful 18% in 2009, per the RAB. Check the effect on payrolls – the Bureau of Labor Statistics says January 2008 employment was 108,566. Just a year later, it stood at 100,914, and in February 2009 it fell below 100,000. The January 2010 number was about 92,500. Four years later, it was south of 90,000, and last September, 86,800. What happened? Take your pick of a combination of factors like ownership consolidation, technology, public companies trying to make their quarters and service the debt, private companies trying to maintain their own profit margins.