at my old job i got hired as the second person due to the workload. graphics with an asterisk because it was really prepress work. so its taking the files designers would create and making sure they would print correctly and in this case make the plates that would be used for printing.

we had old equipment and the adobe suite. eventually the dude that hired was let go and i brought someone else in. we got new equipment and industry specific software. lots of money. brought in a 3rd person.

the last 2 years i was there the boss kept hinting that we needed to look into outsourcing the work. i stalled on that. it was part of the reason why i left. figured if i can find a good job that will at least buy my reports some additional time if not ensure their job.

last i heard one of them was let go and they are starting to outsource the work.

at my current job they were outsourcing a lot of the work. so i came in with the intention to improve the communication and bring some of it in-house. based on my old job i dont see it being viable to bring in equipment to make the plates in house. so much expense and you would need so much work to justify. so im at times just checking in on what our vendor does. i do some of the work i was expecting to but more than i thought or wanted is being outsource. the industry software is so expensive that i dont know if we will ever bring it in-house.

im guessing when the software gets good enough this will be a field that is automated away. at least at the tech level. you will need to be involved in other departments and the "graphics" portion will just be part of what you do.