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| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 305 | 0.00% |
| 2020 | 264 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 285 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 262 | 0.00% |
| 2017 | 259 | 0.00% |
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $54,517 | $26.21 | +2.7% |
| 2024 | $53,104 | $25.53 | +3.8% |
| 2023 | $51,149 | $24.59 | +0.1% |
| 2022 | $51,106 | $24.57 | +0.9% |
| 2021 | $50,628 | $24.34 | +3.7% |
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 88 | 13% |
| 2 | Vermont | 623,657 | 23 | 4% |
| 3 | California | 39,536,653 | 677 | 2% |
| 4 | New York | 19,849,399 | 488 | 2% |
| 5 | Virginia | 8,470,020 | 138 | 2% |
| 6 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 126 | 2% |
| 7 | Tennessee | 6,715,984 | 110 | 2% |
| 8 | Colorado | 5,607,154 | 101 | 2% |
| 9 | Maryland | 6,052,177 | 98 | 2% |
| 10 | Connecticut | 3,588,184 | 76 | 2% |
| 11 | Utah | 3,101,833 | 69 | 2% |
| 12 | Oregon | 4,142,776 | 67 | 2% |
| 13 | Iowa | 3,145,711 | 55 | 2% |
| 14 | Nebraska | 1,920,076 | 34 | 2% |
| 15 | Rhode Island | 1,059,639 | 19 | 2% |
| 16 | South Dakota | 869,666 | 16 | 2% |
| 17 | North Dakota | 755,393 | 12 | 2% |
| 18 | Wyoming | 579,315 | 12 | 2% |
| 19 | Georgia | 10,429,379 | 146 | 1% |
| 20 | West Virginia | 1,815,857 | 24 | 1% |
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hartford | 1 | 1% | $68,824 |
| 2 | Little Rock | 1 | 1% | $42,401 |
| 3 | Birmingham | 1 | 0% | $39,114 |
| 4 | Des Moines | 1 | 0% | $41,691 |
| 5 | Fresno | 1 | 0% | $67,590 |
Olympic College

University of Toledo
Susquehanna University

Columbia College Chicago
Drexel University

Baylor University

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Radio Television Digital News Association

Florida State University
University of North Texas
Olympic College
Social Sciences & Humanities (SSH) Division
Amy Hesketh: Ability to work with a variety of editing software (Avid, Adobe Premiere Pro/Audition, Resolve). Screenwriting and story development.
Amy Hesketh: -Collaboration.
-Teamwork.
-Project management.
-Crew management.
-Professionalism.

Deborah Orloff: Working remotely and meeting via Zoom (and similar video conferencing platforms) is obviously a huge trend, and I expect it to continue.
Deborah Orloff: Flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing situations and new technology has become more important than ever! Creativity and entrepreneurship are also very important!
Susquehanna University
Communications Department
Craig Stark Ph.D.: Probably more remote work opportunities. I would expect many employers will find it more cost-effective to have employees work from home or remote sites, which means employees have to have a good working knowledge of time management and technical skills.
Craig Stark Ph.D.: If a graduate needs to take a gap year from work, the best thing I think they could do is stay involved with the industry. Subscribe to email and text updates from trade magazines, follow regulatory agencies like the FCC and FTC online, and stay in touch. Maintain contact with anyone that you've networked with and attend any virtual job fairs or conferences that you can. Use the time to practice and hone any technical or professional skills that you're interested in. The most important thing is to stay up-to-date and involved as much as you can, so that when the gap year is over it will be easier to get back into the swing.
Craig Stark Ph.D.: Be flexible and willing to change goals and perspectives. The industry is constantly changing and evolving but fortunately you can do anything with a communications degree. Use that flexibility to your advantage and do the best you can to prepare for any industrial, professional, and personal changes in your life.

Duncan MacKenzie: The fine arts' job market is always aggressively entrepreneurial and requires our practitioners to establish their voice and space. With many of our more traditional paths squeezed or closed, we see an increased enthusiasm for online venues and the kinds of work that can support them. After the pandemic, we expect to see a return to the materially based practices and those with performative and social aspects, as the audience will be looking for less mediated experiences.
Duncan MacKenzie: For all young artists, organizational skills, digital and web-based skills, and an ability to communicate verbally and textually are very important; beyond that, craft-based skills relevant to whatever is being made are always crucial.
Duncan MacKenzie: Artists can find relevance anywhere they want to work, but often, they must build the audience for their creative output. It is more comfortable in big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, as they have pre-existing channels and communities for art-making and viewing. Still, those cities can be significantly more expensive to live in.
Michael Wagner: Primarily an understanding of how to be productive in virtual teams. Anything that proves that somebody is capable of working independently and reliably.
Michael Wagner: In our fields, location is no longer a serious concern. People work from anywhere. There are still traditional pockets of media industries such as LA, but the overall tendency is to move into remote work arrangements.
Chris Hansen: Most cities of any size have businesses and churches that need media professionals. Every business needs a media presence for their website, or social media, or advertising. So whether they do that with in-house media employees or outsource to firms or freelancers who handle the work, having these skills will make you employable in most medium-sized or large cities.

David Carren: Critical thinking, a significant component of all successful creative endeavors, will be a considerable asset. Another essential ability to collaborate or work with others efficiently and effectively will also matter a great deal.
David Carren: For theatre, any area with a robust creative perimeter of professional theatre and narrative film and television production. This would mean living in a central metropolitan area or production center.

Nate Bynum: Performance experience is the most apparent accomplishment theatre employers look for on a resume. The documented ability to sing, dance, and act, are still the standards that define a well-rounded theatre performer. A summary showing roles in a wide variety of genres (classical/period/musicals/comedies/dramas) will undoubtedly stand out versus one limited in number and scope. As well, classes taken are of interest to a potential employer. Courses in movement, voice, diction, screen acting, stage combat, etc., will suggest that the student was focused on being--or the program forced them to be--well-rounded and involved. And, fortunately, or unfortunately, the school can make a difference to employers.
The more prominent and more well-known the program, the more famous the alumni, the more severe or well-trained the student is deemed to be. I say "unfortunately" because that is often far from being true. There are many good students to be found on large and small campuses. A well-rounded theatre student has trained in various genres (stage, musicals, film/tv, opera) to prepare for a career in the arts. The operative word being "career." Say, for example, the theatre student is applying to teach at a university. The classes or specialized area of training becomes a lot more important than the proven ability to perform. And with that, the ability to write and communicate orally.
Nate Bynum: It will ever increase. Long before the pandemic, more and more stage performers were being asked to submit auditions via self-tapes. That process can be a time and money saver for both the theatre and the actor. Still, stage acting is centered around performing in front of a live audience, and the best way to prove confidence and ability in doing that is to audition live and respond to feedback in real-time. Recording and streaming live performances is already an issue causing legal ramifications between SAG-AFTRA and AEA. This is a sensitive issue at present.
On the other hand, technology has already impacted film/tv acting, and I think it is to stay there. A reliance on self-taped audition submissions, and Zoom auditions, will probably remain a norm in the on-screen discipline because, again, of time and cost. I think everyone is eager to get back to in-person auditions, getting adjustments in the room from the decision-makers, and just direct reading the room. Still, a lot of money has been spent on the equipment during the pandemic, and no one wants it only to become obsolete. Also, a lot of actors are getting good at self-taping. As well, casting directors have a lot more opportunities nowadays to cast multiple shows. The quick turnaround demanded from network, cable, and streaming shows doesn't allow for many in-person auditions.
Nate Bynum: Undoubtedly, training was greatly affected during the pandemic. Arts training is now, and has always been, hands-on. Even if classes were allowed in-person, social distance spacing is anathema to the movement in the discipline. Theatre and screen acting are collaborative arts. Teachers and students have to work together and nearby. This can not be accomplished via Zoom and 6ft. spacing. Social distance does not exist in the arts. Thus, the limits placed on teachers and students in executing exercises, performing scene work or tech work, or proving to understand the intricate details of a particular art were lost and will have to be learned at another time.
Dan Shelley: While television and radio newsroom hiring has been relatively flat, there are increasing opportunities for broadcast and digital journalists in virtually all parts of the country. Generally speaking, the pandemic has caused some - but not as much as initially feared - contraction in the overall local broadcast and digital journalism space. However, several companies that operate television stations across the U.S. are actively seeking journalists as they have adapted to new innovative ways to cover stories safely and, in many cases, they are ramping up hiring to better serve their communities during these unprecedented times.

Michael Neal Ph.D.: The advice can be tricky, especially since our graduates go into a number of fields. My hope for them is that they continue to build upon what they learned in our program and apply it to new situations and contexts outside of school. I often tell students that editing, writing, and media aren't skills you master and then apply universally across contexts. Instead, we encourage students to keep growing and stretching themselves, since they will most likely face new genres, audiences, and contexts that they didn't see in college. Therefore, we teach them to be flexible, to be close readers, and analyze each rhetorical situation to determine how to best communicate within that context. Good writing isn't one-size-fits-all. Instead, it's a complex, negotiated relationship between writers, texts, contexts, audiences, media, modalities, etc.
Michael Neal Ph.D.: You can get specific, detailed, current information from the career center at FSU, but when I checked a little over a year ago, Editing, Writing, and Media students do well in the job market, some of the best numbers in the college. Our graduates go into many writing- and communication-related fields. A number of them enter law school each year. The salaries for entry-level positions coming out of the humanities tend to be slightly lower than other fields, such as business, but over the course of their careers, they make up for that slightly lower start. In addition to salaries, I also focus on the quality of work-life and professional satisfaction. Students with degrees in Editing, Writing, and Media have the ability to enter many different fields and apply the soft skills they've learned (e.g., critical thinking, project management, communication, design) in various contexts. I keep in touch with many graduates, and I'm continually impressed by the range and quality of their professional opportunities.
Johnathan Paul: My number one piece of advice for soon-to-be or recent graduates is never to stop learning. I always strive to tell my students to be as diverse as possible. Don't just know one thing; in today's market, you need to know how to do several things. Diversify your tool palette. This will help you in the long run and may lead you to a career path you didn't realize existed.
Johnathan Paul: Trying to pinpoint a starting salary in the film and television industry is incredibly challenging. There are so many different avenues that a recent graduate can go into, and each one of those job tracks has a benchmark for what number their starting salary begins at. For example, someone joining a film crew as a Production Assistant will typically make less than someone taking an entry level office job at a studio. The video game industry tends to have better starting salaries; however, many of those jobs are temporarily based on a development cycle. Freelance and contract work are just a reality of the media industry, and it's something I try to prepare my students for.