I am unemployed. Now I’m not whinging — I’m confident my qualifications, contacts and experience will get me something sooner rather than later — but my daily routine of life consists of systematically checking through the various journalism job sites, searching for any gems that pop out at me.

Where are all the jobs? I had a bit of a Twitter-whinge about the lack of real journalism positions out there, and was advised to go over to journalism.co.uk to look at their jobs listings.

The ‘Job of the Week’ right now is for a Senior Proposal Writer. The job entails writing proposals for investors at the London Business School.

Is that journalism? Clearly not. Although, admittedly, they don’t say it is. But why is it one of many on the site that are not journalism positions, despite being on a journalism jobs site?

It’s all to do with the journalism job cycle. There are no jobs in journalism, and it’s decreasing all the time. Yet, the amount of people wanting journalism jobs is increasing all the time. Here we are, flocking to these sites in search of work in the journalism world.

But there isn’t any. Instead, these chancers who know we’re a bunch of wannabe hacks desperate for work, will look at these other non-journo positions, see the salary (40k for that proposal writer), and go ‘oooooh!’ and that’s it. Another potentially good journo lost.

No room at the inn, or is there?

One possible reason for this jobs drought could be a simple one: there are no vacancies. Seems reasonable, in the era of job cuts and redundancies, that there just isn’t any need to hire more staff.

The recruitment sites back up this theory. I totalled up the roles in journalism advertised on the biggest recruitment sites for journalists. It makes painful reading:

At the DMGT, the blanket group which includes the Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Metro, London Lite as well as the groups of Northcliffe and Associated Newspapers, there are a total of eight jobs listed as journalism. Four of those are trainee positions. And only two of them are on newspapers.

Given that the group owns over 100 newspapers, not to mention the entire thisis network, this is worrying. Are there only TWO empty desks at their newspapers across the entire United Kingdom? Unlikely — and I’ll be returning to that point later.

Maybe the magazine sector is looking a little better. Haymarket, publisher of a whole host of magazines including Media Week and Campaign, lists five jobs in editorial within the entire group.

Other mag groups don’t do much better. Emap has three — one of which is a Digital Sales Executive. Not much journalism going on there, then. Future has an impressive (in comparison) 11 places on offer. The ever-stylish Condé Nast lists a whopping 27 places… but none in the UK.

At the Guardian, I counted three jobs in editorial — and they were all for sports subs.

I can’t find careers sites for either the Telegraph or The Times. There is one vacancy listed at the Independent, and surprise surprise, it’s not for a journalist.

And the BBC — the biggest newsgathering operation in the world — has only 19 journalism jobs listed as vacant. And, again, not all of these are journalism positions.

There are jobs, you just have to wait your intern

All this would suggest there isn’t much going in the UK journalism industry, right? Wrong.

Take a look at this (you may have to click on ‘First Job/Interns’). No less than 15 internships available today, and that’s just on one site. Look at the positions listed: Features, picture desk, news, reporter, fashion… all jobs that need filling, yes, but why pay when you can get a reporter for free?

I’ve been on many work experience placements where I have been very busy. The work is there — always — but for some reason, nobody is being hired to do it. That ’some reason’ is of course money. So long as there are graduates willing to work for nothing — not even expenses, in some cases — this will always happen.

Two weeks is a placement. One month is an internship. Three months is a job. A job, by law, requires wages. Sorry, Sunday Times, “There is a payment of £50 a week for expenses” is an insult to young journalists, the industry, and your publication as well. If the ‘lucky’ candidate is good enough to work for your publication for three months, then they are good enough to be paid.

Mixing with the right crowd

Now there’s another theory in my head that is bugging me. Over the past year or so, possibly longer, I have been reading stories such as this one about job cuts at Trinity Mirror. There are many like it. But usually, in these cases, we see that new areas are being created. I heard, recently, that the Telegraph are looking to hire new journalists to fill digital roles. Are they? I don’t see them advertising jobs anywhere. Do you?

This other theory, then, is that recruitment in journalism is a thoroughly insular affair. Job vacancies are not being advertised, they’re being filled by friends of a friend.

If journalism is to improve, journalism recruiters need to look beyond their crowd. Journalism is meant to represent all types of people, so why does it not have all types of people working within it?

Now I realise there’ll always be an element of head-hunting involved. That’s good — it’s productive to promote good work within an industry.

But soon I worry that the wealth of talent that should be coming through UK journalism educating is going to run out when jobs just disappear.

I, and many others like me, can’t afford to work for free. And, without sounding too biased here, I don’t think it’s a strong statement to suggest newspapers need the type of people who come from families on lower incomes if they are to truly represent their entire readership.

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