Blue Skies to close Manchester office
The Drum has learned that Blue Skies Recruitment, the marketing services recruitment firm, is set to close its Manchester base.
The company, which has three offices across London, Manchester and Sratford upon Avon employs around 50 members of staff. It is understood that the Manchester operation currently employs four members of staff who are undergoing a consultation period.
It is also understood that Gareth Vale, head of marketing at Blue Skies has already left.
Ben Vickers, co-founder of Blue Skies said that the company was currently undergoing a restructure and that it was looking at the Manchester operation. He explained that one possible strategy could be to service Manchester-based clients from new, smaller offices in Manchester or from the Midlands operation of Blue Skies.
He said that it was likely that a decision will have been made within the next couple of months.
“The Manchester market has been contracting over the last few months but we’re certainly not going to abandon the city,” stated Vickers.
“We’ve had a sweeping restructure of the entire company over the last week or so and we’ve retained our best people but we’ve had to cut back on the support, like a lot of our competitors are doing. Everyone in the marketing world realises that the next months will be tough so we’ve repositioned ourselves and taken on a leaner structure.”
A statement sent out after The Drum had spoken to the company by Nigel Vickers, director of Blue Skies, read: "Due to the current economic climate, sadly we have had to make redundancies. We are consolidating operations covering Midlands and the North and will be working from the Stratford Upon Avon office."