PR industry restructuring in 2026 centered on agency consolidation and cost pressure, but available disclosures do not establish a PR-only layoff total. Between January 1 and October 31, 2026, Omnicom Public Relations folded Porter Novelli into FleishmanHillard and merged Golin with Ketchum, FleishmanHillard closed its Dublin office, and We. Communications cut less than 2% of its workforce. The largest headcount figures are group-wide and cannot be read as PR layoffs.
Last updated: November 1, 2026. Original EPR research based on documented company events.
What is in this report?
What happened in PR restructuring in 2026?
Twelve documented events define the 2026 record, and each carries a different strength of evidence. The tracker lists them newest first, with dates in 2026 unless noted. The unit of analysis is a documented company event, not a census of the industry.
| Date | Entity and event | What the evidence supports | Classification |
|---|
| Oct 22 to 25 | Omnicom group (Mediaweek report) | On course for a reduction of about 15,000 in headcount, from about 120,000 to about 105,000 by year-end, including disposals, outsourcing and offshoring. | Projected group-wide headcount change, not a layoff total |
| Aug 6 | WPP group (WPP interim results) | Headcount of 97,388 at June 30 versus 104,083 a year earlier, and a target of £250 million in gross run-rate savings by the end of 2026. | Company target, not PR-specific |
| Aug 6 | FleishmanHillard Dublin (PRovoke report, Irish Times report) | Office closure after more than 30 years, with employee consultation under way. PRovoke reports 20 employees. The Irish Times headline says 20 jobs, while its text says around 30 and up to 30. | Confirmed closure, conflicting headcount |
| Aug 4 | Golin Ketchum Brazil (Meio & Mensagem) | Grupo In Press reported to be buying 60% of the Brazilian operation, with Omnicom remaining a minority shareholder. Subject to antitrust approval. | Reported agreement, pending approval |
| Jul 23 | CDN Comunicação, Brazil (Meio & Mensagem, PRmoment) | Leaves Omnicom after ten years. PRmoment reports a 73.82% stake agreement signed June 29, pending approval. | Signed, not completed |
| Jun 29 to 30 | Assembly (Cybernews report) | A Bloomberg reporter said the Edelman-owned agency was laying off staff, then corrected the cause to an agency-wide reorganization. No count and no official announcement. | Reported, not confirmed by the company |
| Jun 29 | We. Communications (Marketing-Interactive) | Workforce cut of less than 2% globally, primarily in the US, tied by the agency to budget pressure from technology clients. | Confirmed reduction, exact count undisclosed |
| Jun 10 | Golin Ketchum (agency announcement) | Combined agency officially launched, completing the integration of Golin and Ketchum under one brand and operating model. | Confirmed combination |
| Apr 10 to 13 | WPP and Burson (PRovoke report) | The Times reported that Goldman Sachs was evaluating options for Burson, including a sale. WPP and Goldman declined to comment. | Reported exploration, no completed sale |
| Feb 10 | Golin and Ketchum (Axios report) | Omnicom Public Relations announced the merger of the two agencies. | Confirmed combination announced |
| Feb 9 | FleishmanHillard and Porter Novelli (agency announcement) | Porter Novelli integrated as a dedicated brand within FleishmanHillard. | Confirmed agency integration |
| Jan 8 to 9 | Porter Novelli Australia (B&T report) | Local leadership left at the end of December as the unit folded into FleishmanHillard. | Reported, regional, precedes the global announcement |
Context outside the window: Omnicom completed its acquisition of Interpublic Group on November 26, 2025, and announced 4,000 redundancies in December 2025. EPR covers the deal in its PR Agency Consolidation Study.
Which PR agencies combined in 2026, and did the brands disappear?
Two combinations inside Omnicom Public Relations are confirmed, and in both cases the legacy names survive in some form. They are two selected deals, not a census of every 2026 transaction.
FleishmanHillard and Porter Novelli
FleishmanHillard announced on February 9 that Porter Novelli would integrate as a dedicated brand within the larger agency. A portion of Porter Novelli's portfolio, including US public sector relationships and select other clients, continues to be served under the Porter Novelli name. J.J. Carter remains global president and chief executive of FleishmanHillard, and Jillian Janaczek, formerly Porter Novelli's chief executive, became chief executive for the Americas.
EPR's FleishmanHillard profile and Porter Novelli profile cover the leadership and client changes in more detail.
Golin and Ketchum
Omnicom Public Relations announced the Golin and Ketchum merger on February 10, and the combined Golin Ketchum launched on June 10 with a new visual identity. Matt Neale, previously Golin's global chief executive, leads the agency as CEO, with Tamara Norman as president, according to the agency's launch announcement. The agency said the name was chosen to reflect the history of both firms, so a headline claiming either brand vanished would overstate the evidence.
When the merger was announced, trade outlets noted it was unclear whether job cuts would follow, and no merger-specific layoff figure has been verified since. Axios predicted that more cuts would likely come, which is a forecast and not a finding. See the Golin Ketchum profile and the Omnicom Public Relations Group overview for the wider structure.
Which PR agencies cut staff or closed offices in 2026?
Three reductions are documented among the events reviewed, and each carries a different level of certainty. Only one has a company statement attached to a headcount range.
FleishmanHillard Dublin closed
FleishmanHillard's Dublin office is closing, according to an August 6 announcement from Omnicom, ending an operation that opened in 1990. PRovoke reported 20 employees, and an employee consultation began under Irish employment law. Omnicom said it would keep serving Ireland-based clients through its wider network.
The Irish Times gave 20 jobs in its headline but wrote that the loss was around 30 and that up to 30 jobs could be affected. Both figures are reported here, and the company has not reconciled them. Brian Harrison, chairman of the Public Relations Consultants Association, told the paper the closure appeared to reflect global agency restructuring after consolidation, not weakness in the Irish market.
We. Communications cut less than 2%
We. Communications, formerly WE Communications, reduced its workforce by less than 2% globally, primarily in the US, the agency told Marketing-Interactive on June 29. It attributed the cut to budget pressure from technology-sector clients and described it as part of annual planning ahead of fiscal year close. A percentage is not a headcount, so no job total can be calculated from it, and the agency's 2025 Singapore cuts were a separate earlier round.
Assembly reported layoffs
Assembly, the Edelman-owned agency whose largest client is Microsoft, was reported on June 29 to be laying off staff. Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg reporter covering the games industry, first linked the cuts to Microsoft ending Xbox vendor contracts, then corrected himself within hours to say they were an agency-wide reorganization and that Assembly still works with Xbox. Assembly had not announced the cuts and no number is public, so the entry stays in the reported category. EPR's Assembly coverage follows the correction.
What do the Omnicom and WPP headcount numbers mean?
The two biggest numbers in the 2026 coverage describe whole holding companies, so neither can be read as PR job losses. Adding them together, or adding them to the agency-level figures above, would mix different populations.
Omnicom: about 15,000 fewer heads, group-wide
Omnicom aims to cut its workforce by about 15,000 by year-end, from about 120,000 at the end of 2025 to about 105,000, according to Mediaweek's October 25 report. Philip Angelastro, Omnicom's chief financial officer, gave the target in September, and CEO John Wren told investors on October 22 that the Interpublic integration was substantially complete. The reduction includes disposals, outsourcing and offshoring, not only layoffs, and Angelastro said the changes had not much affected client-facing staff. No PR-only share has been disclosed.
The timing is disputed. Campaign reported in February that Omnicom's Q4 2025 timetable pointed to roughly 105,000 employees by mid-2028, while Mediaweek's October coverage describes a year-end 2026 deadline. This report uses the more recent Mediaweek figure and labels it as reported.
WPP: headcount down 6.4% and a savings target
WPP's 2026 interim results, published August 6, put headcount at 97,388 on June 30, down from 104,083 a year earlier. WPP said it was on track for about £100 million of in-year savings and a target of £250 million in gross run-rate savings by the end of 2026, as part of an Elevate28 programme aiming for £500 million in gross annualised savings by 2028. Those are group-wide targets across media, creative, production and technology as well as PR.
WPP's PR division, which Burson dominates, did report like-for-like revenue down 6% in 2025. These numbers support a narrow conclusion: large holding companies are shrinking and simplifying, and PR agencies sit inside that. They do not support a claim that 15,000 PR jobs were lost.
Is Burson for sale, and who else is changing hands?
Burson's sale is a reported exploration, not a transaction, and the other ownership changes in the 2026 record are regional and still waiting for approval.
Burson
The Times reported on April 10 that WPP had engaged Goldman Sachs to evaluate strategic options for Burson, including a possible sale. WPP and Goldman Sachs declined to comment, and PRmoment reported that WPP called the talk speculation without flatly denying it. Burson was formed in 2024 from BCW and Hill & Knowlton and employs about 6,000 people. EPR's Burson profile and WPP history track the situation. No publicly reported buyer had emerged as of October 31, 2026.
Brazil
Two Brazilian PR businesses are moving away from Omnicom, according to Meio & Mensagem and PRmoment. A Brazilian investor group agreed on June 29 to acquire 73.82% of CDN Comunicação, with the advertising agency Nova joining as a partner. Separately, Grupo In Press was reported on August 4 to be acquiring 60% of Golin Ketchum's Brazilian operation, leaving Omnicom as a minority shareholder. Both deals await approval from Brazil's antitrust authority.
These deals are tempting to read as proof that independent agencies are gaining ground. The evidence does not show that. It shows ownership structures being rearranged during an integration, and whether the new owners perform better is a question for later reporting.
What are the five findings, and what can the evidence not tell us?
Among the events reviewed, five findings hold up against the sources.
- Two large PR brand integrations are confirmed. FleishmanHillard with Porter Novelli and Golin with Ketchum show network consolidation, though they are two selected combinations and not a census of 2026 deals.
- Integration is not extinction. Porter Novelli continues as a dedicated brand for some clients, and Golin Ketchum keeps both legacy names. Claims that either brand disappeared overstate the record.
- PR-only job counts are hard to establish. Omnicom's 15,000 is group-wide, We. Communications gave a percentage, and the Dublin reports differ between 20 and up to 30.
- Restructuring is not the same as AI replacement. Company statements point to merger synergies, client budget pressure and simplification, with AI-enabled workflows part of the pitch at holding-company level. No source supports allocating specific layoffs to AI.
- Uncertainty extends to ownership. Burson's sale is reported but not done, and two Brazilian deals are pending approval.
What the evidence cannot show yet
- How many PR jobs were lost across the industry in 2026. No source reports a PR-only total.
- How many Omnicom or WPP roles cut were in PR agencies as opposed to advertising, media or support functions.
- The exact size of the We. Communications and Assembly reductions.
- Whether Golin and Ketchum will see merger-specific cuts beyond what has been disclosed.
- Whether Burson will be sold, and to whom.
- Whether independent or regionally owned agencies are winning share. That is a hypothesis, not a finding.
How was this research built?
This report reviews documented company events between January 1 and October 31, 2026, classifying each as a confirmed reduction, projected workforce target, agency combination, office closure, or reported or considered transaction. Earlier transactions, including the November 2025 Omnicom and Interpublic closing, are labeled as context.
- Sources are company statements and trade or national press, cross-checked across more than one outlet where available.
- Workforce figures from different populations are never added together, and no global PR layoff total is claimed.
- Where outlets disagree, both figures are shown.
- The scope is selected significant events, so findings apply among the events reviewed and not to the whole industry.
- Burson and the two Brazilian deals were unresolved on October 31, 2026, and later developments are not reflected.
