Hiring Report Provides Light at the End of the Tunnel
Bernhart said job growth in the overall digital and direct marketing industry is keeping pace with progress in overall U.S. employment. However, he pointed out that marketers are lagging behind their agency and supplier counterparts in terms of job growth.
“Agencies have all but eliminated their hiring freezes, and only one agency responding to our most recent survey said it's expecting layoffs during the next three months,” Bernhart said. “Hiring on the services side also remains strong, with just about half of respondents telling us they plan to hire during the current quarter. By comparison, 38 percent of marketers said they intend to add to staff.”
Meanwhile, the B-to-C segment continues its upswing with major hiring indexes showing more positive trends compared with its B-to-B counterpart.
According to the survey, Bernhart said sales positions would be in the greatest demand during the second quarter. “This comes as no surprise to me given the strong demand I’ve been seeing for sales reps on the recruiting side of the business,” he said. “We’ve been getting steady calls for sales-position searches since the beginning of the year.”
Bernhart added that analytics remained high on the employment list, along with online and multichannel marketing positions.
Bernhart also said that demand for executive search services has been steadily growing since the beginning of the year. “Inquiries are coming in on a fairly regular basis. A year ago, it was little more than a trickle.”
Bernhart Associates’ second quarter survey was emailed to more than 9,700 senior executives and hiring managers, human resource officials, and other key participants in online and offline direct marketing.
According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), direct marketing advertising expenditures as a portion of total U.S. advertising expenditures grew to 54.3 percent and generated 8.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2009. Also last year, there were 1.4 million direct marketing employees in the U.S. Their collective sales efforts directly supported 8.4 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 9.9 million U.S. jobs.
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
