Ad employment sustains slight decline after summer boom
U.S. advertising employment fell slightly in August. Overall U.S. employment reached an all-time while the unemployment rate edged upward.
Fransebas
Advertising, PR and related services
U.S. employment in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) classification of advertising, public relations and related services came in at 488,900 jobs in August based on figures that are not seasonally adjusted.
The loss of 400 ad jobs in August followed an increase of 4,200 jobs in July.
BLS downwardly revised the July figure from a preliminary gain of 4,700 jobs it reported a month ago.
This BLS bucket includes ad agencies, PR agencies and related services such as media buying, media reps, outdoor advertising, direct mail and other services related to advertising. Ad agencies account for the biggest portion—about 45%—of those jobs.
Ad agencies
U.S. ad agency employment totaled 222,500 jobs in July, an all-time high.
Ad agencies added 2,600 jobs in July after gaining 1,500 jobs in June based on figures that are not seasonally adjusted.
BLS downwardly revised the June figure from a preliminary gain of 2,100 jobs it reported a month ago.
BLS reports ad agency employment on a one-month lag, so August figures aren’t yet available.
But August’s decrease in ad, PR and related services staffing foretells a small drop in ad agency employment last month.
U.S. employment
The nation in August added 315,000 jobs based on seasonally adjusted figures as employers overall continued to hire in a tight labor market despite high inflation, rising interest rates, a slowing housing market, a jittery stock market, recession worries and a spate of headlines about corporate layoffs.
Employment grew by 526,000 jobs in July (downwardly revised from 528,000) and by 293,000 jobs in June (downwardly revised from 398,000).
Following an unprecedented loss of 20.5 million jobs in April 2020 as the nation locked down, the economy has added jobs every month except for December 2020.
The World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020.
With August’s employment gain, total U.S. employment (152.7 million) has now recovered all of its pandemic losses, topping its February 2020 pre-pandemic peak (152.5 million) to reach a new all-time high.
