Staff levels decline as recession bites

by Noel Bussey, 21 January 2010, 08:00am

LONDON - The full impact of the downturn has emerged with official IPA figures showing that the number of employees in the UK ad industry declined by 7.4% to 18,635 in 2009, the largest fall since 1993.

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The IPA's Census also shows 15.9% of agencies indicated that they introduced short-time working and 18.7% had allowed staff to take sabbaticals or unpaid leave, in a bid to cushion the impact.

The use of freelancers at agencies fell by 27% to 886 from 1,210 in 2008 and first-year trainees accounted for just 1.3% of the employee base compared with 3.9% in 2008.

Reflecting the decline in levels of graduate recruitment, the number of employees aged 25 and under declined by 22.7%, the largest reduction of any age group.

The Census also revealed that 45.2% of agency employees were aged under 30, while 37% were between 31 and 40, 12.7% were aged 41 and 50 and 5.2% over 50.

The average age of employees in all member agencies was 33.7 years old, compared with 33.3 in 2008. The overall gender profile split remains around 50/50, with an estimated 52.3% of the employed base being male and 47.7% female.

However, at the broader agency management level, 79% of individuals in these positions were male and just 21% female.

In terms of ethnicity, 8.9% of agency staff were from a non-white background, up from 8.4% in 2008 and 6.1% in 2007.

Hamish Pringle, the IPA director-general, said: "This has been the toughest period for agencies in living memory, but the Census shows how resilient our membership has been under difficult circumstances."

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All Comments

mark beasley - 21 January 2010

From the perspective of an older person working in marketing communications, I suppose the slight increase in the average age of people working in IPA member agencies shouild be applauded. However, as this seems to have been achieved at the expense of graduate recruitment, maybe not.

The average age of people working in agencies remains at 33. This is young, when one considers that half of the adult population is now aged over 45. This ghetto of youth is surely a barrier to insight and empathy with an ageing population.

Not a problem at my own agency!! www.rhcadvantage.co.uk

mark greenwood - 21 January 2010

Only 18,000 people in the ad industry? That doesn't seem many. Perhaps they mean people employed by IPA member agencies, which would be a very different thing.

Roger Ingham - 22 January 2010

Mark

You are correct.

The IPA Agency Census is a survey that covers those agencies that are IPA members on 1st September. It does not cover agencies that are outside membership and this is clearly stated in the report.

We believe that the survey is a useful barometer of the health of the industry.

Kevin Gordon - 22 January 2010

Disastrous.

Hopefully Obama's plan to break up the banks will work.

This way a lot of new jobs and new businesses will flourish.

Cash will flow freely to secure new jobs, new upstarts etc

rather than just sitting in bank accounts gathering interest

for a few fortunate individuals while the rest of the world

pays their bills. The banks have a social debt they have

created, and it's time to pay us all back. Without us, the general public,

who borrow money from them so they can make money,

they are nothing, and it's time they learnt their lesson.

gotnoteef - 22 January 2010

right on Kev

Soap Box - 24 January 2010

good points Mark&Kevin well made.

TOBY THWAITES - 26 January 2010

Finding that the decline in staff levels across the industry was as high as 7.9% comes as no surprise to us as recruitment consultants for the creative industries. In the 10 years we've been in business, last year was undoubtedly our worst year and we felt the effects of agencies reining in their recruitment spend. Clearly the lack of younger employees is a result in the cut many agencies made to their graduate recruitment programmes. However, I think it's important to make the point that we saw a definite improvement in the final quarter of 2009 and now we're seeing some very promising signs of recovery for 2010. There's an increase in the number of freelance bookings and freelance to permanent appointments, greater commitment to headcount increase this year and talented candidates are once again in demand with agencies competing for them - we're feeling optimistic that 2010 will be a much better year in recruitment terms.

Neil Hopkins - 26 January 2010

It will be interesting to see what changes come now, following today's story that the UK is out of recession...

Hopefully the industry will see a bit of an upswing, also giving new 'recruits' the chance to cut their teeth.

anthony agarrat - 27 January 2010

People re-mortgaging their houses in order to purchase 46 inch plasma screens, nicer cars and all the other useless tat promoted 24 hours a day 7 days a week on TV, the radio, newspapers, billboards, toilet paper etc is the fault of banks and not the advertising industry......

Neil Hopkins - 27 January 2010

Know exactly what you mean, Anthony.

With that in mind, how much of a social responsibility should the advertising industry have to try and dissuade people from this kind of unwise expenditure?

What is the cross over between selling stuff and being a force for social change?