Consolidated Communications has joined the ranks of agencies making
redundancies with four staff leaving in the past week.
The agency said the loss of two client-facing staff and two support
workers reflected fears about future levels of client fee spending
rather than any specific cutbacks.
Board director Will Holt said: 'We have made four people redundant as a
direct result of the slowdown. There is not one specific trigger, but
clients are looking at 2002 and putting figures together and this is a
sensible move.'
'It is not just existing clients, but the new business market is also
not as animated as it was several months ago,' he added.
Holt said the redundancies had affected both the agency's consumer and
public affairs teams. The cuts, around five per cent of the workforce,
follow similar moves at other agencies, such as Firefly Communications,
which made 11 employees redundant earlier this month and City PR agency
Brunswick, which has let five client-facing staff go.
Burson-Marsteller has made more than 20 staff redundant in the past
year.
Consolidated works for Budweiser and for clients in the troubled airline
industry, including beleaguered Dutch carrier KLM.