Respectfully, what is going on over at PwC? It feels like people have been getting cut left and right for months if not years. For today, we’ve got scoop on significant layoffs in Business Services this week.
A tipster tells us:
Pretty much the entire TID [talent acquisition] team has been let go all the way up to senior managers. Some leadership roles have been dissolved in addition to at least half of the business recruiters, campus recruiting, and some nearshore assets. The entire Argentina US team is gone.
This group includes contractors, a tidbit that will be relevant in a second. It also includes EAs.
To get the point across that this was a total team wipe our tipster reiterates:
They wiped out the entire TID department from the top down.
They said this includes Talent Acquisition Sourcing Leader Jill Kiemele. Her LinkedIn still shows her as working at PwC so that’s an as-yet unconfirmed.
This thread on r/Big4 backs up our tipster’s info. Not even nearshore staff are safe?? What even are we doing?
Honestly, According_Pickle has the right idea.
We don’t have specific numbers, seeing some people say a few hundred?
Talent acquisition was informed last November to expect more cuts, nice how they made everyone sweat it out for a few months. At that time, a tipster shared what they’d heard about the next two years: “Current roadmap of ‘transformation’ as they are calling it is within the next 24 months. Will be relying heavily on contractors and third party labor to fill business needs. Significantly limiting recruiting efforts in this timeframe.”
This is what Firmwide Talent Acquisition & Development Leader Margaret Burke said in an email to all US Talent Acquisition in November, warning them that “transformation” (i.e. hella layoffs) were coming:
[Talent Team],
We’ve all seen how quickly technology continues to evolve, and how it’s reshaping the way we work. As part of our ongoing transformation, we’re introducing new tools and processes that help us focus more on high-value, strategic work while improving the experience for our candidates, stakeholders and teams.
One are we’ve received is interview scheduling, a process that has historically involved manual coordination and multiple hand-offs. Our new, technology-enabled interview Scheduling Hub will simplify scheduling, reduce friction, and allow interviews to be confirmed more quickly and accurately.
We also want to acknowledge that progress often brings change–and that change can have real impacts on people. As you heard from Tim Grady, Business Services is on a long-term transformation journey, Modernizing how we work, aligning more closely with changing firm needs and the evolution of our Lines of Service, and improving efficiency and sustainability. While the overarching goal of that journey is transformation and reinvestment, we made the difficult decision to move forward with a workforce reduction, which impacted some of our colleagues on the Interview Scheduling team. We’re deeply grateful for their contributions and for the foundation they helped build that allows us to take this next step forward.
For those of you in tax, audit, or consulting thinking “meh, it’s just talent people,” zoom out for a minute and think about it. The recruiting pipeline is critical to the business model, or at least it used to be back when firms were hungry for the warm bodies of accounting graduates. Slashing these roles signals that we’re in for even more pipeline deterioration ahead. It makes sense that in lean times firms go straight for the people who aren’t generating revenue but at some point you have to wonder who even is left to cut?
The ’20s really aren’t shaking out to be so roaring of a decade eh?
More discussion here from r/PwC:
Get in touch via email or text if you have more info or just need to vent. Tipsters are always anonymous.
I know these aren’t accountants, but they support the accountants who generate the revenue at PWC. I’ll ask the same question I’ve been asking over and over for the past several years. Why would any kid in high school or college want to major in accounting anymore? Accounting seems like a poor career choice at this point.
The large accounting firms should be trying to save and promote the profession, but it seems like the only thing the partners care about is their own short to medium-term profits. They don’t care about what they’re leaving behind once they sail off into the sunset. I know that it’s naive of me to think that anyone should care about the future of the accounting profession or its role in our financial markets, but still. As someone who has spent my entire career in this profession, it’s pretty disappointing to see what’s happening.
As a college senior with a full time offer from PwC lined up, I can tell you that I went with accountancy because of job stability.
Sure this is bad, and layoffs at large firms are probably going to become trendy for the next few years, but at the time (3 years ago) there was a huge gap in the market and it made sense.
All of that said, I don’t think the need for accountants, especially CPAs will ever go away? So it’s a good access point into a stable job market.
Maybe I’m wrong but I highly doubt that anyone would be okay with AI filling their tax return (individual or entity level) without AT LEAST a pass through from a CPA.
I think “trimming the fat” of adminstaff isnt necessarily a horrible thing, (for the health of the company, it is terrible for those who lost their job) but it certainly doesn’t point to a “good” future. Sure if I were to have my own company I’d seek to eliminate as much “redundant admin” as possible. For a huge firm like PwC this only makes sense
PwC already has AI Agents for some basic things like timesheets and other such, and while it is handy, someone, somewhere still has to review it’s work.
All of this to say,
I went with accountancy because it seemed like a solid choice, the CPA protection is nice and overall it’s a field that works for my way of thinking.
If it wasn’t for the partners, many of you would never progress within your career. The cheap, arrogant shot about partners only after profits disgust me. You owe all partners an apology.
We have never lied that we want to provide quality service, affordable rates, and mentor talent. It’s just too bad that in today’s “everyone gets a trophy” world a handful of ASSociates clowning off as clubhouse warriors ruin the morale for the good intentioned.
Shame on you!
I think I just the same way a few associates can ruin morale, the same can be said about partners considering youre supposed to be setting the tone of the work stream. Just by the childish way you lash out, it looks like you are one of those. Go feed your very small intellect a book on leadership. Lead from the front for a change.
This…makes me laugh. The DEI mentality explains it all!
says the bully with a pocket protector
Cutting these costly, non-client servicing positions will open up more options for PWC to better service clients. Cutting wasteful DEI jobs is another plus. My own firm will break out their rightsizing plan that will cut wasteful spending and redundant jobs. Firms who do not copy this playbook will suffer.
Accounting students in college reading this right now, maybe this isn’t a career worth getting into if you wanted stability and safety in employment.
Disregard any comments from that KPMG partner that posts here that says “eVeRyThInG iS fInE”