Grim Job Picture for New J-School Grads

By: Mark Fitzgerald Class of 2008 journalism school students graduated into the worst job market for new journalists in nearly a quarter-century -- and those who managed to find a job usually had few benefits to go with a stagnant salary, according to a survey released Wednesday.

Lee B. Becker, a professor at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications, has been conducting the job and salary survey of new j-school grads since 1986. This latest study, released at the first day of the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, is the grimmest yet. The study was co-authored by Tudor Vlad, associate director of the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research.

"Only six in 10 of the graduates had full-time employment six to eight months after graduation," Becker and Vlad report. That's the lowest level of full-time employment ever reported in the 23 years of the survey.

Public relations graduates had the best chance of finding employment, with nearly 71% employed. By contrast 59% of print journalism graduates had found work by the time they returned the survey.

Getting a job in journalism is not the happy, or remunerative, experience it once was, the survey found.

"Graduates who found work were more likely to report they took their job because it was the only one available and less likely to say they were doing what they wanted to do," they wrote.

While job satisfaction among 2007 graduates was at a record-high level, with 42% saying they were "very satisfied," that fell to 37% among 2008 graduates.

Graduates who found work received the same average salary -- just $30,000 a year -- as the 2007 grads, the survey found.

But the compensation package for last year's graduates was lighter. Compared to a year ago, employers were less likely to pay all the cost of their health plans, or to pay at all for dental coverage, life insurance, maternity and paternity leave, child care and retirement.

Becker and Vlad surveyed 2,542 spring 2008 graduates receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from 86 universities around the country.