What are the chances you’re going to spend the rest of your career working in radio?
For many of us, that is a complicated question hinging on lots of different variables. They include how long your current employer decides you’re a valuable member of the team. And whether it is your desire to stay in radio until retirement. For some of us, work load and that elusive work/life balance occupies a high priority. There’s also the question of whether your current employer is acquired or makes an important purchase of another company. And finally, what about the shape that radio is in over the next several years – that might come into play, too.
Of course, your age, your specific job, your upward mobility, and your compensation figure into this life equation, too. Along with the market you’re in, your current job duties, and what you aspire to do next year – and beyond.
While radio has never been thought of as a stable profession, the moving and shaking of the past couple decades, and even the past few years, have been turbulent. And the RIFFs and right-sizing continue right up to the time this blog post is being written. Every wave of layoffs creates its own unique sense of insecurity, fear, and foreboding.
I may not know about how long general managers, salespeople, program directors, or traffic managers plan on hanging around in radio, but I do have a pretty good idea about how air talent feel about their longevity in the business. That’s because we’ve actually asked the question before in our AQ studies, including our most recent study fielded just this past summer.
Not surprisingly, those who have already spent most of their careers entertaining and informing on the airwaves – the Baby Boomers – are most likely to conclude they’ll be radio “lifers.” For Millennials and women on the air, sticking around for the entirety of their working years is far from a done deal. And in the main, feelings of stability are shakier – while seven in ten feel they’ll end their careers in radio, this is down nine points from a year ago.
How long do radio’s rank and file think they’ll still be working for the same employer? That’s a whole different matter, especially during these precarious times. But we do have general data that sheds some light on how employees view their life spans with the companies they work for now.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported by Sherwood News, reveal that employees in the U.S. are less likely to stay with their jobs for a decade or more. And once again, women are even less likely to stay on the payroll at the company or organization where they currently work:
In fact, the average tenure with an employer is just 3.9 years – the lowest it’s been in 22 years.
As Sheridan reports, the “job for life” concept that our parents or grandparents may have experienced is an anachronism in the current environment. And once again, women move in and out jobs faster than men.
So, it’s not just radio. The days when people spent their entire careers working for the same companies are in the past.
But for those of us radio employees, we’re increasingly less likely to stay in the business – period.
Those “on the beach” are even less confident about ever “getting back in the game.” In AQ6, we have a small subsample of the unemployed (N=59), and no surprise – they’re less bullish about the trajectories of their radio careers:
Understandably, they’re less likely to like the chances they’ll be able to get back into the business. In fact, four in ten (39%) tell us they’re done with radio.
A less stable workforce and employees less committed to their careers can’t be good for radio over the long haul. But that’s the world in which we live.
So how’s that 401K doing?
Originally published by Jacobs Media
