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Printing Machine Operators
Overview » Industry Pathways » Printing Technologies 
Printing machine operators are the workers who keep the all the printing presses running smoothly until the boss yells, “Stop the presses”! They prepare, operate, and maintain the printing presses in a pressroom. Duties of printing machine operators vary according to the type of press they operate such as screen-printing or digital.
Some printing presses actually involve lots of physical tasks. For example, gravure is a printing process in which the recesses on an etched plate or cylinder are inked and pressed to paper. Flexography is a form of rotary printing in which ink is applied to a surface by a flexible rubber printing plate with a raised image area. Use of gravure and flexography should increase over the next decade.
In addition to the major printing processes, plateless or non-impact processes are coming into general use. Plateless processes—including digital, electrostatic, and ink-jet printing—are used for copying, duplicating, and document and specialty printing, usually by quick and in-house printing shops, and increasingly by commercial printers for short-run jobs and variable data printing.
To prepare presses for printing, machine operators install and adjust the printing plate, adjust pressure, ink the presses, load paper, and adjust the press to the paper size. Press operators make sure the paper and ink meet specifications and adjust margins and the flow of ink to the inking rollers. They then feed paper through the press cylinders and adjust feed and tension controls. In most shops, press operators also perform preventive maintenance. They oil and clean the presses and make minor repairs.
Machine operators’ jobs differ from one shop to another because of differences in the kinds and sizes of presses. Small commercial shops are operated by one person and tend to have relatively small presses, which print only one or two colors at a time. Operators who work with large presses have assistants and helpers. Large newspaper, magazine, and book printers use giant “in-line web” presses that require a crew of several press operators and press assistants.
Most plants have or will soon have installed printing presses with computers and sophisticated instruments to control press operations, making it possible to set up for jobs in less time. Computers allow press operators to perform many of their tasks electronically. With this equipment, press operators monitor the printing process on a control panel or computer monitor, which allows them to adjust the press electronically. Eventually, lots of the heavy physical activity that has traditionally been part of this industry should decrease and computers will be the main part of many printing activities.
Printing machine operators held about 198,000 jobs in 2006. Nearly one-half of operator jobs were in the printing industry, but newspaper publishers and paper product manufacturers also were large employers, having each about 10 percent of all printing machine operator jobs. Additional jobs were in the “in-plant” section of organizations and businesses that do their own printing—such as banks, insurance companies, government agencies, and universities.
Press operators can find jobs throughout the country because the printing and newspaper publishing industries located in small and large cities throughout the nation. However, many jobs are concentrated in large printing centers such as Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Employment of printing machine operators is expected to grow more slowly than the average through 2016. Despite the slow growth, many older printing machine operators will soon retire, and the need for workers trained on increasingly computerized printing equipment will create many job openings over the next decade. Opportunities to become printing machine operators are likely to be favorable for persons who qualify for formal apprenticeship training or who complete postsecondary training programs in printing.
The demand for printed materials is expected to increase over the coming years. Demand for books and magazines will increase as school enrollments rise, and as major growth in the middle-aged and older population results in increases in adult education and leisure reading activities.
Demand for commercial printing also will be driven by increased expenditures for print advertising materials. New market research techniques are leading advertisers to increase spending on messages targeted to specific audiences, and should continue to require the printing of a wide variety of newspaper inserts, catalogs, direct mail enclosures, and other kinds of print advertising.
If you are interested in this occupation, however, you need to be aware that the printing industry will experience slow growth because of the increased use of new computerized printing equipment and new business practices within the publishing industry, such as printing-on-demand and electronic publishing, which will cut into the production of printed materials.
Although completion of a formal apprenticeship or a postsecondary program in printing equipment operation continues to be the best way to learn the trade, most printing machine operators are trained informally on the job while they work as assistants or helpers to experienced operators. Operators are likely to gain experience on many kinds of printing presses during the course of their career. Details about apprenticeship and other training programs may be obtained from local employers such as newspapers and printing shops or from local offices of the state employment service.
Many press operators in commercial shops learned their work skills through apprenticeship programs, which has been the major type of on- the-job training. This usually takes four years including related classroom or correspondence school courses.
In contrast, formal postsecondary programs in printing equipment operation offered by technical and trade schools and community colleges are growing in popularity. Some postsecondary school programs require two years of study and award an associate’s degree, but most programs can be completed in one year or less. Postsecondary courses in printing are increasingly important because they provide the knowledge needed to operate advanced equipment.
Technological changes have had a tremendous effect on the skills needed by printing machine operators. New presses now require operators to possess basic computer skills. Even experienced operators receive retraining and skill updating.
Typical hourly earnings of printing machine operators were $15.14 in 2006.
The basic wage rate for a printing machine operator depends on the type of press being run and the geographic area in which the work is located. Workers covered by union contracts usually have higher earnings.
If you are interested in this occupation or are wondering about related occupations, use the links below to continue your exploration. Always remember, the more effort you put into exploring possible careers, the easier it will be for you to discover the best career choices for you!
For career information and links to employment resources contact:
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: http://www.bls.gov/oco/
Occupational Information Network, O*NET Online: http://online.onetcenter.org/
For information on careers and training in printing contact the following sources:
Graphic Communications Council: http://www.npes.org/education/index.html
Graphic Arts Technical Foundation: http://www.gatf.org
Printing Industries of America, Inc.: http://www.gain.org
For information about planning and paying for college, visit Junior Achievement’s Financial Aid Center.
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