Mullen Cuts 20 Percent of Staff

Mullen/LHC on Tuesday said it is cutting 30 people in its Winston-Salem, N.C., office, which is about 20 percent of its local staff.

Recent business losses (such as Thomasville Furniture, Sara Lee’s Hanes, Alabama Power) and the overall economic slowdown precipitated the cuts, an agency representative said.

The Wenham, Mass., headquarters of the Interpublic Group shop is not affected by the cuts in the South, the representative maintained. An unspecified number of Wenham staffers have been quietly let go since the year began, sources said — an assertion Mullen executives have denied. [Adweek, April 9]. After the Winston-Salem cuts, Mullen will employ roughly 475 nationwide.

New England-based agencies have been battered by layoffs of late, including a cut of about 120 people announced last week at Boston’s Digitas [Adweek, June 18]. Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, also in Boston and — along with Mullen — a unit of IPG, said it will lay off at least 20 as it prepares for the departure of Fidelity Investments.