Zurich advertising agency Wirz Group, known for Switzerland Tourism’s global Roger Federer campaigns, says it will cut jobs after Migros reduced the amount of work it commissions from the firm.
Wirz confirmed the reduced workload and resulting layoffs in comments to a local Swiss financial blog published on Thursday.
“Wirz continues to work for Migros,” the agency told the outlet. But changes to part of their existing collaboration “lead to a reduced volume of work,” it said. “Unfortunately, we therefore have to part with employees. This is a painful step that we very much regret.”
Wirz also said there was no social plan for the affected staff.
Notably, a 2023 Forrester forecast projected that automation could eliminate 32,000 US advertising agency and related services jobs, equivalent to 7.5% of that workforce, by 2030. Generative AI is accounting for nearly a third of the projected losses. Adoption is advancing: in a 2025 IAB survey of 529 advertising-industry specialists, 30% said AI was fully integrated across their media-campaign work, while 37% cited job displacement as a significant or critical concern. The ILO estimates that one in four workers worldwide has a job with some exposure to generative AI, but stresses that exposure does not mean redundancy: most affected jobs are more likely to change than disappear.
Read More: Zurich Says AI Could Double Productivity Growth, But Jobseeker Rise Raises Questions
Wirz Says Job Cuts Are Not Connected To AI
The agency did not provide a figure for job losses in its published comments, so the scale of the cuts remains unclear. It said the reductions were part of organisational changes and were not connected to artificial intelligence.
The available statement also does not establish whether Migros plans to bring the work in-house.
Wirz and Migros have worked together on major campaigns, including marketing for the retailer’s centenary and its Christmas advertising. The newly reduced work concerns only part of their partnership, according to Wirz; the agency has not specified which campaigns or services are affected.
The development follows separate cuts within Migros’s own marketing and communications division.
In April, Migros Supermarkt AG said it was eliminating 20 full-time-equivalent positions affecting 25 employees.
Those were jobs at Migros, not the layoffs now announced by Wirz, and the two figures should not be added together as a confirmed total for this announcement.
Migros’s account of the change to its agency arrangements was not included in the published Wirz comments. The number of agency staff affected, the timing of the departures and the precise scope of the reduced contract remain unanswered
