It’s December 2022 and we’re now a good year into “The Great Accounting Shortage,” the depth of which won’t truly be known until the fines start rolling in for piss-poor audit work performed by skeleton crews. So, any day now.
I’m sharing this r/accounting post so six months from now we can look back on it and fondly remember a time when it seemed desperate for partners to be out combing the LinkedIn meat market for talent leads. Friends, the desperation is only beginning.
Ruh-oh. Comments are pretty good too.
In August, we talked about an uptick in accounting firm mergers as a direct consequence of the talent shortage and we’re definitely seeing exactly that from the small firms. It’s a bloodbath down at the lower levels and small firms are struggling to compete, though we hear grunts rightfully complaining that their firms aren’t turning away work even if they don’t have the warm bodies to do it which is a separate problem of its own.
Remember that History Channel show Life After People? We might need to start thinking about Life After Accountants. What are we going to do, bring in the National Guard to do corporate tax returns?
