We had a bad feeling more public accounting firms would be laying people off this week due to the current economic situation caused by COVID-19. We really hoped that wouldn’t be the case. But it happened. Today.
This morning we learned via Reddit that Whitley Penn, which has six offices in Texas, was the latest accounting firm to let go of some of its employees. We don’t have an exact number of how many people were laid off, but it seems like folks in all service lines were affected.
We have not heard anything about staff pay cuts at the firm but we were told that WP partners did take a pay cut prior to the layoffs, although we don’t know how much.
A tip we received this evening confirmed the layoffs:
I would say at least 10 people from the Dallas office were let go so it would be safe to assume that around 5% of the total workforce were terminated.
The service lines that I know for sure were impacted are accounting services, audit, and TAS [transaction advisory services].
We later found out from another tipster that some people from the firm’s tax department were laid off as well.
According to the firm’s website, Whitley Penn employs 62 partners, more than 550 employees, and is part of the Nexia International global network of accounting firms.
In terms of revenue, Whitley Penn is the 45th largest accounting firm in the U.S., according to INSIDE Public Accounting.
Anyone with additional details about the layoffs today at Whitley Penn can send an email or text our way using the contact info below.
