This latest quarterly survey by Semper, the leading US placement firm for skilled help in the graphic arts and printing industry, found that 73.1% of printers reported a profitable last three months of 2011, with 40.5% responding that they expect sales to increase in the first three months of 2012.

That’s a sharp reversal from the most recent Semper survey, released just three months ago, when 20% of the 300 small, medium and large printers who responded expected sales to be down in Q4.  

"The pessimism that we saw through the first three quarters of 2011 appears to have abated and people seem to be more positive," Semper CEO Dave Regan told PrintWeek in an interview.

The survey found that the biggest concern among printers remains the current economic climate. That was followed by lower cost competitors, though Regan pointed out that the number dropped from 26.4% in the previous survey to 20% in this one.

Semper has been carrying out the quarterly survey for eight years. Regan commented: "We’re not seeing the kind of optimism we saw in 2007, but we’re also not seeing the pessimism we saw the last couple of years. More than 18% are planning to hire new workers, versus only 12.2% for the previous quarter."

Only 7.8% of the executives who responded were planning to lay off staff this quarter.

Regan noted there are some geographic differences, with the Midwest doing the best, followed by East Coast printers. "But the West Coast, just in the last couple of weeks, is becoming more positive as well," he added.  

Health Insurance requirements remain the biggest concerns printers have about their labor costs, but Regan noted that the concern about overtime pay for workers found in previous 2011 surveys has been replaced by worries over having higher base pay for employees.

One of major reasons for the increased optimism is the positive impact expected from the US elections – not just the national races, but also statewide and local.  While the general interest media has focused on the millions of dollars being spent in recent weeks on TV & radio spots in primary states like South Carolina and Florida, Regan pointed out that "there’s also a lot of direct mail be sent in those competitive states."

He added: "We have a jobs boards called Printworkers.com and we saw a lot of printers in South Carolina searching resume packages and looking for skilled workers in the last month or so. Fundraising for these political campaigns is almost all print—you don’t see fundraising ads on TV and you don’t see radio spots for fundraising. But they’re clearly soliciting donations and they’re doing that by print."