The Writers Guild West reports about 5,072 members with earnings last year against nearly 7,000 at the 2022 peak, and there are two ways to read the fall

How Many Writers Are Working?

The most reliable measure of the health of screenwriting as a trade is not box office or the number of series announced. It is how many writers earned anything from writing in a given year. The Writers Guild of America West collects that figure, because members report their earnings and pay dues on them.

The latest count was released to members in the summer, and the trade press reported it in early August. It confirms a contraction that writers have felt for three years.

The Figures

According to Deadline’s report on the guild’s annual financial statement, 27 per cent fewer members reported any earnings in 2025 than at peak employment three years earlier. Around 5,072 writers reported earnings to the guild last year, down from nearly 7,000 in 2022.

The decline is not evenly spread. Television has suffered more than film. The report says television jobs are down by more than 33 per cent. In features the fall since 2022 is about 14 per cent, to 2,007 members recording earnings last year.

The guild’s own wording, as quoted, is that the contraction continues to have an impact on the industry. It attributes the situation to the companies’ pullback in scripted programming after years of overspending.

The Background

These figures extend a trend documented earlier. In the spring of 2025 the guild issued a snapshot of television employment by season. The Hollywood Reporter’s account of it said there were 1,819 television writing jobs in the 2023-24 season, a 42 per cent decline from the season before. That was fewer than in the season interrupted by the pandemic, which employed 2,722 writers.

The season in question included the 2023 strike, which will have depressed the number. But the new annual figures, covering calendar 2025, show that employment did not bounce back once the strike was over.

The Guild’s Reading

The union’s explanation is consistent across its reports. During the years of rapid expansion in streaming, companies commissioned scripted series at a rate never seen before. Investors then began to demand profits. Spending was cut. Fewer series were ordered, with fewer episodes and smaller writing staffs.

In the earlier snapshot the guild described an industry in transition, with cable subscriptions declining and a run-up and then pullback in streaming series as Wall Street sought quicker returns. In a message to members it said that writing careers had always been difficult to access and sustain, but that the contraction had made it especially challenging.

On this account writers are bearing the cost of decisions made in boardrooms: first to overspend, then to retrench.

Another Reading

The companies have not, in the reports cited here, offered a rebuttal. But a different interpretation of the same numbers is available and is held by many analysts.

It runs as follows. The level of employment in 2022 was not normal. It was the top of a bubble, financed by cheap capital and a race for subscribers that could not last. Measuring today’s employment against that year makes the fall look steeper than it is. Measured against, say, 2012, the picture would be less dramatic.

From that standpoint the industry is not shrinking so much as returning to a size its revenues can support. Painful for those who entered during the boom, but not a sign of collapse.

The two readings are not wholly opposed. The guild itself speaks of years of overspending. The disagreement is about where the adjustment should stop and who should carry it.

What Neither Side Disputes

Several points seem beyond argument.

There are substantially fewer paid writing jobs than three years ago.

The loss is concentrated in television, which was where most writers earned a living.

And roughly 1,900 people who were earning as screenwriters in 2022 reported no writing income in 2025. Some will have retired. Some will have moved to other work. Some are still trying.

Other Forces

The guild’s explanation emphasises corporate strategy. Other factors are often cited alongside it.

Production has moved. Some series that would once have been made in Los Angeles are now made abroad, sometimes with local writers under different agreements.

Viewing habits have shifted toward short video and other forms that do not employ screenwriters at all.

Mergers have reduced the number of buyers. Fewer companies competing for material means fewer commissions.

And there is artificial intelligence, the subject of much of the 2026 contract. There is no evidence in these figures that it has yet displaced writers in any measurable number. Its effect on what companies are willing to commission is harder to assess.

What It Means for Individual Writers

For someone already established, the numbers confirm that competition for each job is sharper. For someone hoping to enter, they describe a narrower door.

They also change the meaning of contract gains. Improved minimums and protections, of the kind negotiated this year, benefit those who are working. They do nothing directly for a writer who cannot get hired.

That is not a criticism of the contract. It is a limit on what any contract can do. A union negotiates terms of employment. It does not control how much employment there is.

What to Watch

The annual figures for 2026, due next summer, will show whether the decline has levelled off. In the meantime the indicators to follow are the number of scripted series ordered, the size of writers’ rooms on those series, and whether the film side continues to hold up better than television.

This article reports figures as given by trade publications from guild documents. For a less sober treatment, The London Prat covers the trade in its British satirical news on fewer writers working and its London satirical news about peak television. Bohiney Magazine covers Hollywood from the American side.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/