As with many other sectors, B.C.’s public relations industry has suffered in the pandemic economy.
Over the past year, average employment at the province’s top PR firms fell 5.5% to 16.1 employees in 2021 from 17.1 in 2020.
The median number of employees took a harder hit. It dropped 15.6% to 13.5 employees in 2021 from 16 in 2020. This suggests that smaller companies lower on BIV’s list of B.C.’s biggest public relations companies (https://biv.com/lists) lost more employees than their larger counterparts. In 2020, average employment at the province’s top PR firms fell 1.6% following years of sluggish growth.
With a 46.7% jump to 22 employees in 2021 from 15 in 2020, Hill+Knowlton Strategies Canada (No. 6) recorded the list’s largest increase. Laura Ballance Media Group (No. 13) posted the steepest one-year decline in B.C. employees, falling 44% to 10 in 2021 from 18 in 2020.
Employment grew at only seven companies on the list and two in the top five. A large decline in Edelman’s (No. 4) B.C. employment knocked the company into fourth place from its No. 1 rank in 2018. Despite employment declines over the past year, No. 1 Talk Shop Media’s 2020 employment increase pushed it past Edelman in 2020.
