5th August 2009, 04:54 PM
I agree with Kevin. I reckon it's market fission rather than consolidation, with smaller pieces of work being competed for by small outfits with minimal overheads and larger pieces of work won by the largest units. The medium-sized (15-40 staff members or so) are finding themselves stuck in the middle. The ironic situation will be that as smaller-sized companies shed experienced staff, those experienced personnel that are made redundant but wish to remain in the profession are likely to become competitors to the smaller companies by setting themselves up as small companies/ self-employed. They will have the skills, the experience, the client and curatorial contacts and far fewer overheads.