Public relations: A recession-proof industry?

Ragan’s PR Daily believes the public relations industry of today is recession-proof, and according to today’s blog post, they have data to back it up.
When financial markets reached lows decades ago, companies tended to curtail their public relations efforts. But in the past 10 years, while the United States’ economy has fluctuated dramatically, the public relations industry has grown. According to private equity firm Veronhis Suhler Stevenson, annual spending on PR services in the United States will increase 55 percent between 2008 and 2013 to $billion.
There are several reasons experts believe the PR industry is alive and thriving. First, crisis communications is becoming more valuable than ever thanks to the advent of social media. While PR support is important in the good times, it is even more important in the bad times. Second, PR beats marketing and advertising from a value-added proposition as retainers tend to be lower and results are more cost-effective.