Public sector PR tenders climb amid pandemic boost for industry

Public sector tenders for public relations, communications and events services have risen sharply compared to pre-pandemic figures, while job vacancies across the industry have soared, a new analysis by the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) has found.

The representative body for the PR profession, led by chief executive Martina Byrne, believes the Covid-19 pandemic has acted "like an accelerant" for its industry, with the crisis prompting private and public sector organisations to address their need for communications expertise.

PRII members were notified of 27 tenders relevant to their business from January 1st to mid-April. In the same period in 2019, there were just seven tenders, with 19 in 2020 and 20 in 2021.

The PRII said it was seeing “sustained strong growth” in the sector as it rebounds from the pandemic, with March seeing almost double the number of job opportunities or vacancies in the PR sector compared to March 2021.

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PR and communications job opportunities published on its website in the six-month period from October 2021 to March 2022 have been more than 50 per cent higher than they were in the pre-pandemic period of October 2018 to March 2019.

In-house teams

While agencies are reporting vacancies, much of this growth is arising from public and private organisations building up their in-house communications teams or creating new teams where they didn’t have them before.

Meanwhile, the number of new members joining the PRII in the past six months has already exceeded the numbers who joined in the previous 12-month period.

“Everyone is out the door busy,” said Dr Byrne.

“During Covid, here and globally, the contribution of professional public relations advice to organisational survival and success, and the fragility of corporate reputations, became more apparent to senior management and boards.”

The value of maintaining “meaningful internal communications” has also received greater recognition at board level since the dispersal of workforces during Covid-19 lockdowns and advent of working-from-home culture, she added.