Finding and keeping qualified staff challenged publishers throughout 2025. The skills needed shifted. The compensation expectations rose. The competition for talent intensified. Here’s what the labor market looked like for publishing.

The Skills Gap

Traditional editorial skills—writing, editing, story development—remained essential but insufficient. Publishers needed staff who also understood SEO, analytics, audience development, social platforms, email marketing, and increasingly technical tools.

Finding people with both editorial judgment and technical fluency proved difficult. Strong writers who couldn’t think about digital audience. Technical people who lacked editorial sensibility. Rare individuals who bridged both were heavily recruited.

Compensation Pressure

Publishing traditionally paid below market rates compared to corporate communications, marketing, and tech companies. This continued being problem in 2025 as other industries competed for similar skills.

Writers who could make $60K at publications or $90K at tech companies often chose the money. Publishers couldn’t compete purely on compensation.

The publications retaining talent offered non-monetary benefits: editorial freedom, meaningful work, reasonable workloads, remote flexibility. These mattered to some people enough to accept lower pay.

Remote Work Expectations

Staff increasingly expected remote work options. Publishers requiring office presence struggled to recruit. Those offering flexibility had larger talent pools.

But fully remote teams faced coordination challenges. The publications succeeding with remote work invested in proper communication tools, regular check-ins, and occasional in-person gatherings.

Publications in expensive cities benefited most from remote hiring. They could employ talented people from lower-cost areas at salaries that worked for both parties.

Burnout and Retention

Small editorial teams covering constant news cycles burned out. The 24/7 content demands without adequate staffing led to exhaustion and turnover.

Publications that addressed this—realistic workload expectations, adequate staffing, mental health support, actual time off—retained people better than those that burned through staff.

The false economy of understaffing showed up in turnover costs and quality degradation. But budget-pressured publishers often couldn’t add staff even knowing it would help.

Freelancer Relationships

With staff positions scarce, publishers relied heavily on freelancers. Building and maintaining freelancer networks became crucial operational capability.

Publications that treated freelancers well—fair rates, reasonable deadlines, actual editing, prompt payment—had access to quality contributors. Publications that treated freelancers as disposable struggled to get good work.

Skill Development

Staff needed ongoing skill development as publishing technology and best practices evolved. Publications that invested in training retained people and maintained capabilities. Those that didn’t fell behind.

Training didn’t require massive budgets. Access to online courses, time to learn new tools, peer knowledge sharing all helped. But it required recognizing skill development as legitimate work rather than extra-curricular activity.

Diversity Challenges

Publishing remained less diverse than it should be. Publications committed to improving diversity faced challenges in recruiting and retention.

Pipeline problems meant fewer candidates from underrepresented groups. Workplace culture issues meant retention challenges even when hiring succeeded. Addressing this required sustained commitment beyond token efforts.

The publications making progress invested in outreach, mentorship, inclusive culture, and leadership development for diverse staff.

Junior Position Squeeze

Entry-level positions became scarce as publishers cut budgets. This created pipeline problem for industry. Where do future editors and journalists come from without junior positions to train them?

Some publications partnered with journalism schools for internships and apprenticeships. But the overall number of entry opportunities declined.

This likely creates industry problems in coming years as experienced staff retire or leave without trained replacements available.

AI Impact on Roles

AI tools affected what skills mattered. Basic content production became less valuable when AI could handle it. Editorial judgment, reporting, analysis, and relationship skills became more important.

This shifted what publishers looked for in new hires. People who could use AI tools effectively rather than people who did tasks AI could automate.

The transition created tension. Some staff felt threatened by AI. Others saw it as tool that made their work easier. Managing this cultural shift challenged publishers.

Contractor vs. Employee

Publishers increasingly used contractors for flexibility. This provided budget flexibility but created other challenges—knowledge loss, less organizational commitment, coordination overhead.

The line between contractor and employee sometimes blurred in ways that created legal risks. Publications needed to be thoughtful about classification.

Cross-Functional Expectations

Publishers wanted staff who could work across functions. Writers who could think about SEO and audience development. Editors who understood business model and revenue. Designers who considered user experience and conversion.

This made hiring harder—finding multifaceted people was difficult. But it made small teams more capable than strictly siloed roles allowed.

What Worked

Publications that retained talent generally:

• Paid as well as budgets allowed with transparency about constraints
• Offered meaningful work with editorial freedom
• Maintained reasonable workloads and respected boundaries
• Provided growth opportunities and skill development
• Built genuine team culture even in remote environments
• Treated staff as humans rather than content production units

What Didn’t Work

Treating staff as interchangeable. Burning people out. Offering low pay without non-monetary compensation. Micromanaging. Failing to provide necessary tools and support. Ignoring skill development needs.

Looking Forward

Publishing talent challenges continue in 2026. The skills needed keep evolving. The competition for qualified people remains intense. The budget constraints persist.

Publications that want to attract and retain good people need to offer something beyond just employment. Whether that’s mission, culture, flexibility, growth opportunity, or compensation, there needs to be compelling reason to work there.

The publications that figure this out will have operational advantage over those that don’t. Talent quality matters enormously for publishing success. That remains true even as economic pressures make investing in people difficult.

No easy answers exist. But publications that prioritize people and culture position themselves better than those that treat staff as cost center to minimize.