Compared to the corporate side, salaries for PR execs on the agency side are down significantly this year. "Corporate salaries have lost ground, but not to the extent that the
agency side has," says Dennis Spring, president of executive search firm Spring Associates Inc., which provided the salary data in this issue exclusively to PR NEWS. In the late
1990s, PR agency base salaries increased, in many cases, beyond corporate levels, mainly because of all those fat budgets that tech companies were showering on PR agencies. The
windfall forced the agencies to hire new people to handle all the new business. Well, now a lot of those tech companies have flamed out, and the downsizing of agency salaries
reflects the trend.
"They were the biggest winners during the boom and the biggest losers during the bust," Spring says, referring to agency execs. Still, he adds that with economic indicators
heading in the right direction PR salaries on the agency side should soon climb back to reasonable levels. "It's all about supply and demand." For agencies, no one pattern
emerged. Overall, the most respectable gains - if you can call them that - were for PR execs working in the consumer space while the most meager returns were for PR execs working
in the health/med/pharmaceutical spaces. Some categories on the agency side, such as hi-tech and b2b, showed some nominal gains, but they are nothing to write home about.
|
PR Agency Execs' Average Base Salaries * ($000)
|
||||||||||||
|
Acct. Exec.
|
Sr. Acct. Exec.
|
Acct. Supervisor
|
Vice President
|
Sr. Vice President
|
Exec. Vice Pres.
|
|||||||
| Specialty Category |
Range
|
Change^
|
Range
|
Change
|
Range
|
Change
|
Range
|
Change
|
Range
|
Change
|
Range
|
Change
|
| Corporate/Financial |
36-43
|
3.0%
|
44-52
|
6.0%
|
56-66
|
5.1%
|
79-92
|
6.3%
|
105-125
|
2.4%
|
131-147
|
-1.1%
|
| Consumer |
35-42
|
4.6%
|
43-51
|
3.6%
|
55-66
|
7.8%
|
76-89
|
3.9%
|
99-117
|
3.1%
|
125-139
|
1.6%
|
| Hi-Tech |
38-45
|
0.9%
|
47-56
|
2.6%
|
58-69
|
3.5%
|
78-94
|
1.1%
|
101-120
|
1.5%
|
124-140
|
-0.8%
|
| Industry B-to-B |
35-44
|
0.0%
|
46-55
|
0.3%
|
56-68
|
1.8%
|
76-93
|
-0.7%
|
97-116
|
-0.5%
|
118-133
|
-3.2%
|
| Investor Relations |
37-43
|
0.4%
|
47-55
|
1.1%
|
58-69
|
0.6%
|
80-96
|
5.9%
|
105-125
|
3.6%
|
130-144
|
1.1%
|
| Health/Med/Pharm |
40-48
|
0.0%
|
48-58
|
0.6%
|
62-74
|
2.6%
|
84-103
|
5.0%
|
109-125
|
0.5%
|
129-143
|
-1.6%
|
| Public/Gov't Affairs |
36-43
|
-0.3%
|
47-55
|
2.4%
|
60-71
|
4.6%
|
81-96
|
5.2%
|
103-121
|
1.4%
|
126-141
|
-1.2%
|
| *National salaries. ^Change vs 2002. Complete regional & key city salary info available in The Official PR Salary & Bonus Report - 2003 Edition Source: Spring Associates Inc. |
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