Source: TheDrum
WPP has asked managers to pause bringing in fresh talent into the holding company until early next year, due to poor full-year profit forecast, TheDrum reports.
According to Bloomberg, a memo has been circulated telling department heads to “take urgent action” to stop recruitment immediately in order to “try and protect” the business in the coming years.
Sources told the site that WPP’s finance department regularly sends out a memo on hiring at this stage in the financial year, with the most recent being sent on 26 October, one day after new chief executive Mark Read downgraded the company’s prospects during its Q3 financial update.
WPP currently employs 134,000 people and had been forecast to add 2,000 to that number by the end of 2018. The sources said recruitment will resume at the end of Q1 2019.
The report that WPP is to pause all hiring follow on from one of its biggest agencies Ogilvy UK separately offering all staff voluntary redundancy as part of its own “radical” restructuring drive.
