The results of the latest IABC member survey on employment issues carried out in June indicates that over 14% of members have lost their jobs in the last 12 months.

That’s a lot of people as the professional association currently counts 15,500 members worldwide, so if you project the figure out, it translates as about 2,170 members.

That’s an increase over the survey taken three months ago, when fewer than 11% of members reported losing their job in the last 12 months, and it’s well above the average unemployment rates in major markets in North America and Europe.

Is it a worrying trend? Hard to say as the survey results page on the IABC website (sorry, access to members only) is a bit sparse on detail, eg, what type of communicators were the respondents, geography, etc. 154 members took part: is that a representative figure to draw any credible conclusions from in a bigger-picture way?

Still, two quarters in a row of increasing unemployment among members sure looks like a trend, and no doubt would be one if a jump is shown in the next survey.

Here are the headline figures:

• 14.29% of members surveyed said they’d lost their jobs in the past 12 months. (The survey doesn’t indicate how they lost their jobs, eg, redundancy, acquisition, employer or own firm going out of business, etc.)
• If 28.67% said they were looking for a new job, nearly 73% of everyone surveyed said they were not looking for a new one.
• Of those who were looking, 43% said they had found a new job during the past 12 months.

IABC is the International Association of Business Communicators, a not-for-profit international network of professionals committed to improving the effectiveness of organizations through strategic interactive and integrated business communication management. It’s headquartered in San Francisco and has members in nearly100 countries.

Many members are highly active online, notably on Twitter (and @IABC, the official presence).

I’ve been an IABC member since 1989.