Question: What workforce trends is the industry experiencing?
Summary: Over the past years, the changes in regulation and technology have affected broadcast, cable, print and tellecommunications industries a lot. The control of media resources had an especially great impact on the diversity of employment and quality of jobs in these industries. If these trends continue, minorities and female workers might find themselves at risk of losing their jobs. Right now, "as policymakers consider legislative and regulatory changes in the communications and media industries, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund believes that issues of employment opportunity and economic security should be part of the debate." The Fund also calls attention to a new study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), which examines the effect that regulatory, industry, and technological changes are having on both the quality and quantity of jobs for women and minorities in the communications and media industries."The study finds that despite the explosion in new information technologies, overall job growth in the communications and media sector has lagged behind job growth in the rest of the economy." It also finds that "while other newer industries, such as wireless telecom and cable, are providing jobs for women and minorities, compensation in these industries lags far behind that in the wired telecom industry."
Analysis: The problem the media industry has to face today is the diversity of employment, or the lack of it. It is a common knowledge that technological innovations replace human labor, thus the workers. But it does so in an unfair manner. In the media industry, the changes in regulation and technology lead to elimination of specific types of workers - minorities and female workers. It is surprising that such a problem even exists! After all, we do live in the 21 century. The executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights states - Wade Henderson - stated that “The communications and media industries, as leading sectors of the 21st century economy, should lead the way for minorities and women... In the media industries, where the voice of minorities and women is so critical, we find growing concentration blocks that voice. This underscores the critical importance of strong media ownership rules.” I agree with that statement, and would also like to add that if nothing would be done about this problem today and the trends will continue others industries beside media might face the same problem and we will go back to that era where women and minorities were treated unequally and did not have the same rights.
You say that changes in regulation and technology lead to the elimination of minority and female jobs. Which ones? How so?
ReplyDeleteI have always been under the impression that increased technological capabilities meant more opportunities for work on maintenance, higher wages, more jobs creating the technology, and an overall higher employment. While we might see less workers in this particular industry, isn't it made up for with a much broader increase in employment across the macro-economy?