The tough times within the advertising and marketing industry have hit the STW Group, which has allegedly retrenched about 20 staff.

According to a report on The Australian online, the employee cuts are primarily from the Ogilvy group of companies in Sydney and began at the start of the year.

STW has indicated that is would be in the process of reducing costs, but chief executive Mike Connaghan says that he didn’t know of any specific retrenchments within the group.

American Express and Telstra last year announced cuts to their own marketing staff, which may have prompted the STW cuts as the companies are two of the group’s key clients.

There have been claims staff from companies including Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, Ogilvy One and Ogilvy Interactive were the primary victims of the job cull.