Hey. Some news if you want it.
The Observer on shrinking headcounts at consulting firms, specifically Big 4 consulting firms:
Consultants are facing the awkward task of researching AI-driven job cuts within their own industry. Last week, a McKinsey report found that job vacancies in the UK economy have fallen by 43% since 2022, with the decline in postings for white-collar jobs nearly twice that seen elsewhere.
Across the professional services sector there is a dawning realisation: the disrupters have become the disrupted. A many-sided crisis in consulting includes the replacement of entry-level and graduate roles with AI, a reduction in spending on consultants by governments and reputational problems linked to companies’ work, whether it is marketing for opioids or drawing up reconstruction plans for warzones.
Rightsizing, as companies prefer to call it, was inevitable after the post-Covid consultancy boom was punctured by sluggish growth and higher borrowing costs. But recent data shows the ability of agentic AI – agents that can make decisions and take actions on our behalf – to knock together a passable PowerPoint presentation or research document has caused severe attrition of roles at the lower end of the pay scale.
This is particularly evident in a subset of consultancies. The big four accounting firms – Deloitte, EY, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG – posted 44% fewer jobs for graduates this year compared with 2023.
Daily Mail remembers Big 4 exists, covers Aussie workers “raging” about Deloitte’s new RTO mandate (which was news to us so we’ll be sure to cover that one in full shortly):
Australian employees of a global corporation have been told they will be required in the office multiple days a week.
TheAussieCorporate page claimed Deloitte will issue a mandate for employees to return to the office three days a week.
Employees in Australia were told during Thursday afternoon briefings that they would be required back in the office, or on client sites.
‘Deloitte return to office mandate has been rumoured for a little while with some more senior staff mentioning that it’s coming,’ the anonymous user said.
‘Brisbane office doesn’t have enough seating and hot desking is usually a nightmare.’
Remember like two years ago when people insisted firms couldn’t force RTOs because they didn’t have enough desks? Yeah, they don’t care. What many of you don’t realize is just how many of your pre-pandemic colleagues have since been replaced by overseas staff. They have desks there.
In China, a 41-year-old woman who treated her company’s funds like a personal bank account went undetected by the accounting firm hired by her employer. SCMP reports:
A woman in China who earned a modest 8,000 yuan (US$1,100) a month embezzled nearly 17 million yuan (US$2.4 million) to pay for a lavish lifestyle and undergo a range of cosmetic surgeries.
The 41-year-old, who used the pseudonym Wang Jing, worked as a cashier for a flower and gardening services company in Shanghai that was founded by a person surnamed Xu in 2018.
To facilitate payments, Xu and Wang set up a secured online banking system that was controlled by Wang.
Xu had hired a professional accounting firm and could monitor the company’s finances via her phone, so she felt reassured and placed her trust in Wang.
She confessed that her sole motivation at work was to transfer company funds into her own account for personal use.
It wasn’t until 2024 when Chinese tax authorities dropped in on the business that Wang’s scheme was uncovered. At that point, company coffers were basically empty. Sounds sketchy.
In Iowa, 18 high school students are being exposed to accounting this summer:
“A CPA is a lot like a financial doctor,” said Crystal Francois, business development manager at Honkamp. “They help keep your money healthy by tracking income and expenses.”
“The goal is to introduce these kids to the accounting profession overall to see if it’s something they want to pursue, and if so, to help them with the tools and next steps to do so,” said Engagement and Retention Manager Richelle Gentile. “We’re trying to set them up for success if this is the path they want to go down but also help them determine if it’s maybe not the path for them.”
Gentile said the Honkamp program had eight participants in its first summer course four years ago and has grown to 20 students this summer.
Yeah, we don’t know where the other two students went. The article said 18 in the lede.
Weaver is up and running in Philadelphia, led by a GT alum:
Houston-based national accounting and advisory firm Weaver opened its first office in Philadelphia, the company said July 17. The new office is at 30 S. 17th St., which is also known as Duane Morris Plaza. The Philadelphia office will include managers representing the firm’s tax, audit and advisory services.
The Philadelphia office is led by Ryan Coleman, partner-in-charge, tax credits and property incentives. Coleman first joined Weaver in December 2023. Prior to that, he spent nearly 13 years with Grant Thornton LLP as tax managing director for strategic federal tax services.
A KPMG Australia economist says it’s just too fucking expensive to have babies:
The big four accounting firm found that over the last year, the total number of births nationally reached 292,500 – a recovery of 2.6 per cent compared to the previous year.
However, this was noted to be a 3.8 per cent drop from 304,000 in 2019, before the pandemic significantly drove up birth rates.
Terry Rawnsley, KPMG urban economist, said the baby bounce back was largely felt outside the nation’s capital cities, with regional Australia having reached 94,900 births in the last year – a 3.9 per cent increase from 2023.
“Rising rents, mortgage payments and childcare costs in the metro areas are putting a handbrake on people’s plans to start or grow their family,” he said.
The business of “AI assurance” is generating a billion dollars a year in the UK. Problem is there’s no standard and there’s little assurance that all these companies are doing a good job:
“Hundreds” of “unchecked” groups offer audits, claiming to assess whether companies using AI models such as those in self-driving cars and cancer-detecting programs do so reliably, fairly and safely, the British Standards Institution warned on Monday.
Many of the groups that sell AI audits also develop their own AI technologies, “raising concerns about independence and rigour”, the BSI told the Financial Times.
Mark Thirlwell, global digital director at the BSI, said: “There is a risk of a ‘wild west’ of unchecked providers and the potential for radically different levels of assessment.
“Businesses need to be sure that when their AI management system is being assessed, it is being done in a robust, coherent and consistent manner.”
That’s it for this morning, plenty more to come this week. Feel free to email or text if you have a tip, have seen a story we’d like, or just want to gripe. Bye!
