While some accounting firms in its weight class, like Crowe, Baker Tilly, EisnerAmper, and Wipfli, have laid off somewhere between 3% and 10% of their staffs due to the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 crisis, Marcum hasn’t resorted to those measures. Yet.
During a town hall meeting earlier this afternoon, Marcum CEO Jeffrey Weiner warned that workforce reductions could be on the horizon if work doesn’t pick up soon.
A source summarized for us Weiner’s message to employees:
We need work to keep going, so if we don’t have clients that need work, we may have to reduce our workforce. Will be evaluated again. Advisory work dried up, assurance still going, tax will be determined after July 15 deadline.
Now, we have received some tips in the past couple of weeks about people who were let go from Marcum, but a source told us those job cuts were strictly performance-related:
As of now, all firings are performances based. Some were let go early March. Those were people that were going to get fired no matter what.
During the meeting today, Weiner outlined a few steps the firm is taking to prevent mass layoffs from happening. According to a source, here’s what JW said:
- Staff – supervisors bonuses are deferred till after June 30, but not canceled.
- Everyone must take half of PTO by July 31. That is about 14 days for any accountant.
- Asking people to go on PTO, sabbatical or even voluntary unpaid time off with benefits to help the firm.
In non-austerity measure news, Weiner said Marcum offices in Ohio will re-open on May 11 and offices in New York City will re-open on May 15, according to what we were told. It looks like masks and social distancing will be required, and the firm will be staggering shifts to limit interaction.
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