I see that jobs are in jeopardy at the printing arm of Trader Media Group. This is another example of how classifieds are moving more and more to the Internet.

However as I learnt in my previous job running a large classifieds site, you cannot make the same kind of revenue online as you can selling a classifieds newspaper and this will ultimately see organisations such a Trader Media contract to bring itself to a point whereby the new online order becomes profitable.

My 22 month old son, having a bit of an accident in the snow!

There is no doubt that the UK Printing and Publishing Industry will see further declines in classified advertising because of the downturn in job vacancies, car sales and house sales. Advertisers will look for more cost effective means of advertising exacerbating the drift of classifieds to the Internet. It is estimated some 200,000 jobs are dependent on the UK newspaper press industry out of a total of around 316,000 printing jobs.

There will always be print. The internet serves as just another tool to which classifieds is ideally suited because of the length of time the ad can be online for, the low cost, the almost unlimited text and image real estate and the searchable nature of its architecture. 

Print needs to build on its core strengths. I myself do not want to read a newspaper on the Internet or on a laptop on the way to work.  A newspaper does not need a power supply, can be read in bright light, is bio-degradable, light and would not blow up if I spilt my coffee on it! Newspapers are great for reading commentary and in depth journalism and they need to build on that, increase circulation and re-appraise the classifieds conundrum

I’m not so sure about Gordon Brown’s rescue plan for the UK economy, however it is a bold gamble and a bold, pro-active move and though he is at least part responsible about getting us into this mess, I do feel given his credentials he is the only contender to take us out again. I’m just worried this recovery plan, based on keynesian economics has never really been tested before to these extremes.

I am reading a book on economics at the moment (along with Roger Moore’s Autobiography) called ‘Free Lunch-Easily Digestible Economics’. It outlines that since Japan’s bubble burst in the late 1980’s successive efforts by the Japanese Government to boost the economy through tax cuts and extra public spending, have failed. Bear in mind interest rates in Japan today stand at 0.1% from a high a 6% at the peak of the boom.

Such measures have no effect because people know they will have to pay for them later in higher taxes. 

So much is down to ‘confidence’, meaning confidence about the future and that is a tricky thing to conjure up when the future looks gloomy.

Reading the gloom that is all around us at the moment reminds me of the two previous recessions that I have so far lived through. They were harrowing. The big one for me was in the early mid 1980’s when on leaving Sixth Form I found I could not get a job, I was trying to get a lithographic apprenticeship and must have written over 200 speculative letters with only a few replies, nobody was taking any apprentices on.

Back then my father used to open the letters to try to avoid the look of despair on my face, sometimes these things only come out years later.

Fortunately though a small reprographic company took me on a part time and then a full time basis and I completed a four year apprenticeship. Once you have a skill you are then worth something to an employer and that really is the bedrock of any job.

Back then the jobs were very skillful and time consuming, most page make up was done manually using contact frames, cameras (with film!) chemicals and masking. By the late 1980’s Apple computers were being introduced and now the job is effectively computer based. I always did get more satisfaction though by working with my hands, it just doesn’t feel quite the same on a computer. Now all those skills I learned are 90% not needed any more, just shows you how fast technology moves and we all have no choice but to update and re-train where necessary to make yourself as valuable as possible.

First off, my ambition is for workinprint.com to become the biggest jobs board for the Printing Industry. It will always be cheaper than any other board and should have technology that will eclipse any competition. It is a free printing jobs board since launch in Oct 2007 and we continue to listen to our users and take on board their comments.

We are rebuilding workinprint.com to address some common issues and to increase the calibre of candidates where possible. Because we will develop our own technology and are therefore not behest to the development program of third party job board technology we hope to introduce some new features that will help employers and job hunters alike.

Version 1.0 of workinprint.com was about getting employers and recruiters to post job vacancies and to achieve good search results, which in all honesty is improving over time but is not where I would like it, hence we run Google campaigns in the meantime to supplement our organic rankings.

Of course it will only happen if recruiters and employers place jobs and in who in turn receive the right volume and quality of candidates, so it has to appeal to job seekers and recruiters alike.