As industry layoffs mount, marketing analytics firm InfoTrust is pledging no layoffs through at least July 1 and enlisting others, primarily in marketing and technology, to follow suit.
So far InfoTrust has encouraged 58 other companies with close to 12,000 employees to adopt its #NoLayoffs pledge. They range from several small marketing and other companies nearby its headquarters in Blue Ash, Ohio, north of Cincinnati, to companies as far away as Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. The biggest agency to make the pledge has been Good Apple, a New York digital media shop, with 79 employees, which has also extended its no-layoff commitment to Dec. 31. InfoTrust CEO Alex Yastrebenetsky wants to get pledges from companies with a total of 100,000 employees.
The pledge isn’t permanent, of course. And for InfoTrust, with 70 employees, it was easier after receiving a $1 million Payroll Protection Program loan in April. But it still wasn’t easy. After sales soared 70 percent last year and kept growing in January, they fell 10 percent for the first quarter, Yastrebenetsky says. Some clients put projects on hold, and some on retainer asked for “gap quarters.”