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The Media and Marketing Sectors are seeing a mixture of good and bad news in our 2009 review.
Salaries in advertising, marketing, PR and journalism have dropped by between 10 and 20 per cent in the past year,
according to the latest survey by recruitment agency Prosperity.
The biggest declines have been experienced by the highest earners, while more modest salaries have been less affected.
The drops have been seen across the entire industry, with the only exception being the digital marketing sector,
where salaries appear little changed after inflating in 2008.
Even in the digital sector, longer working hours are the norm, and bonuses have been lower, so the overall packages
were less valuable.
However, this sector has not seen the imposition of three day working weeks and layoffs, as experienced in the
advertising industry and PR.
The gaming sector is still robust, as are telecommunications companies. Web designers are in demand, but
consumer marketing has ground to a halt.
Prosperity's 2009 survey shows that some salaries, particularly those at the most senior end of the scale, are
down by as much as a fifth - a reflection of slippage in marketing spend by companies and in advertising revenues
for media owners.
In the marketing area, the maximum salary has dropped from an average of €140,000 to €110,000.
A marketing manager can expect to earn between €50,000 and €85,000, down from a previous cap of €95,000.
In advertising, a creative director's salary range has fallen from a range of €72,000 to €125,000
to €72,000 to €110,000. A media buyer who might have expected a salary of anything up to €65,000 is
now averaging a maximum of €58,000.
The declines follow a year in which salaries in these sectors had increased by 5 per cent, driven mainly by gains
in online marketing.
Qualified specialists in the online field were in heavy demand last year, and salaries reached record highs.
Even at the top end of pay scales in online marketing, basic salary levels were mostly unchanged, with account
directors commanding between €60,000 and €90,000 and account managers up to €38,000.The salary range
for an online planner remained steady at €35,000 to €42,000.
Traditional PR also saw declines, with the upper salary expectation for a PR account director slipping from
€90,000 to €74,000, according to the survey.
In journalism, print journalists' average salaries fell from a maximum of €60,000 to €50,000. Editors'
maximum salaries fell from €100,000 to €82,000.
However, as of the month we conducted this survey - June 2009 - we can see increasingly positive indicators in
the media and marketing sectors in Ireland, and a definite increase in hiring, so we expect to have a much more
positive salary survey for 2010!
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