Despite worries about macroeconomic conditions throughout 2023 and resulting and significant cuts to marketing and advertising budgets by the technology sector, the advertising, PR and related fields added more than 10,000 jobs for the full year, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

The Bureau doesn’t provide detail on the types of jobs that were added but reported that the total job count (seasonally adjusted) for the advertising, public relations and related services was 504,600 as of December 31, 2023. 

That was a gain of 1.9% for the full year.   

The BLS doesn’t provide any color on where the growth came from or whether advertising, PR and related services all contributed to the growth or whether just some of those sub-categories did.   

For the most part, job levels in the ad industry are tied to organic growth. If an agency wins a big new client or assignment, it will add jobs to support the account. Likewise, job cuts at an agency are likely if it loses a big client.