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Job cuts made at Brandtech group media agency Jellyfish may be the latest symptom of a contracting advertising and marketing job market. The company cut as many as 50 roles at the end of October, following a slowdown in client spending, Digiday has learned.
“Our existing clients were spending less money, some of those were retracting the projects that they had planned, and that obviously led to a revenue hit,” said one exec whose role was cut in the layoffs and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Jellyfish confirmed the cuts. “Like everyone in marketing, our business is dynamic and we are constantly making shifts in our resources, redesigning roles and structures,” said a spokesperson. “At 8% we have one of the lowest churn rates in the industry. Currently there is a very small number of roles affected in the U.S. and U.K.”
Those let go face difficult circumstances. One ad-tech executive made redundant earlier this year, who exchanged candor for anonymity, told Digiday that 11 months on, they were still without a permanent position. Compared with previous job markets, they said new positions were thinner on the ground.
“Back then I could walk out of a job and walk into five interviews the following day. Now, I can’t get the interview,” they said. “It’s a tough market.”
Jellyfish’s cuts are small, compared with the job losses at holding company agencies in recent months.
Forrester analysis suggests agency headcounts have fallen 8% in 2025. In August, Dentsu committed to eliminating 3,400 jobs worldwide, approximately 8% of its staff. WPP, meanwhile, cut 7,000 during the final months of Mark Read’s CEO tenure; 700 came from Ogilvy alone.
Interpublic Group has laid off 3,200 employees this year, while its to-be acquirer Omnicom already cut its global headcount by 3,000 jobs in 2024 and has been working to reduce staff costs by 10% in the run-up to that merger’s completion. Once the deal is complete, it expects to find $750 million in cost savings — given labor costs always lead the balance sheet, that’s not great news for the thousands working under each umbrella.
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“Layoffs have become the new normal,” said the former Jellyfish exec.
But industry job losses aren’t limited to agencies. In October, TikTok cut 400 jobs in the U.K. from its Trust and Safety Team, while Target cut 1,800 white-collar positions, and Amazon recently announced plans to reduce its corporate workforce by 14,000 roles. CPG giant Nestlé plans to cut 12,000 office staff.
Between August and December 2024 (the most recent data), the American ad industry lost 4,600 roles overall according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And data from Britain’s Office for National Statistics showed job openings in the advertising and marketing industries had fallen 7.5% between 2022 and 2025. That’s set against rising unemployment in the U.S. (4.3% in August) and the U.K. (5% in September); U.S. firms, particularly retailers, announced the most job cuts for any October in more than 20 years according to a Thursday report from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Some of the firms responsible have laid out their own justifications for reducing headcount. A historic merger here; long-term underperformance there; a restructuring ahead of a potential sale. Add them all together, and a pattern emerges.
“What we’re seeing is layoffs as a result of restructuring and financial distress,” said Jay Pattisall, vp and senior agency analyst at Forrester, who referenced an estimate by Madison & Wall that suggested the four largest holdcos averaged just 0.3% organic growth in Q3, the lowest for five years.
“If you’ve got a category that is in effect growing less than 1% then yes, they’re shedding jobs, because jobs are the number one overhead,” he added.
This year’s job cuts can be traced to restructuring and client cutbacks. But generative AI is the ghost at the leaving party.
“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet,” said Beth Galetti, svp of people experience and technology at Amazon, in an Oct. 28 blog post sent to Amazon employees. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.”
Naveen Tewari, CEO of ad tech firm InMobi, warned in February that AI progress meant his software engineers “will not have jobs within two years.” Statements like Tewari’s are leaving marketing execs looking for their next role worried they’re going to be frozen out, experience be damned.
The anonymous ad tech exec voiced fears that older workers could be disproportionately affected, and that a perception they’re less adept with gen AI tools could be used as cover for ageist discrimination.
40% of advertising staffers aged between 40 and 55 feel their age has limited their career, according to research by the IPA and the Advertising Association. “It does start to feel like ageism and a slight white male-ism,” they said.
Pattisall suggested that while this year’s layoffs can be primarily traced to restructuring pushes, next year’s will be provoked by AI. Two years ago, Forrester predicted that AI, automation and efficiency initiatives would result in a net 7.5% reduction in the U.S. advertising workforce. Its most recent report upgraded that estimate to 15% by the end of next year.
Again, this isn’t limited to ad agencies. Over a quarter of private-sector employers expect to cut staff as a result of AI, according to a survey of 2,000 firms by the Chartered Institue of Personnel and Development, the U.K. professional body for HR. 62% said they believed that admin and managerial roles were most at risk.
“The technology was nascent when we developed that forecast in in mid-2023,” explained Pattisall. “We had not factored for agentic and agents. I think we’ll see a larger percentage of the advertising population that can be replaced by those tools.”
— Jessica Davies contributed reporting to this story
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