Good luck to those of you graduating with accounting degrees in the next couple years, extra luck will be needed to get hired at PwC.
Business Insider has published a pretty awful story today about PwC cutting campus hiring by a third in 2028 and the firm has surprisingly confirmed that the internal presentation saying as much that BI saw is based in fact. One reason they gave: “historically low attrition.” We all know the real reason. BI does too, just check out the article’s URL:
The Big Four firm told Business Insider it was “decreasing our campus hiring goals,” after we obtained part of an internal presentation saying it plans to cut entry-level hiring in the US by almost a third over the next three years.
The company did not comment on specific numbers but said the reductions reflected “the rapid pace of technological change is reshaping how we work” and “historically low” attrition.
A source at PwC said that the presentation was shared with an employee alum group of a major US college on Tuesday to help prepare them for recruitment season. The person, whose employment Business Insider has verified, asked to remain anonymous as they are not permitted to speak publicly.
The slide says PwC expects to hire 2,197 tax and assurance associates in 2028, 1,045 fewer campus hires than 2025.
Said PwC in a statement to BI: “We recognize that the rapid pace of technological change is reshaping how we work, what our clients require, and the skills our people need to thrive. Given the historically low levels of attrition our business has faced the past few years, we are being prudent by decreasing our campus hiring goals in certain parts of our firm and leaving space for us to reevaluate our needs as necessary to meet the evolving demands of our business and our clients.”
Oh fuck off.
Getting a job at PwC out of college will be a lot tougher. It plans to recruit a third fewer grads by 2028. [Business Insider]
PWC used to be the premier college recruiter. I know that during the pandemic we saw few students that possessed the desire to learn and work and recruitment costs skyrocketed, but this is a mistake. PWC will rely on poaching associates from other firms and most have not been adequately trained.
Serious question. Why would any kid with at least a half-decent IQ major in accounting now?
Earlier this week, there was a story (PWC didn’t deny it) that over the next few year, Audit Manager will basically be an entry-level position out of college. New employees will reviewing the work performed by AI, rather than starting out at the ground level themselves. How is this going to work?
I don’t think PWC (or anyone else) has figured out how to deal with AI yet. They’re excited by the possibilities for terminating staff and reducing headcount (it’s been the partners’ wet dream for decades), but they have no clue what happens after that. For the current partners, I’m sure they’re just looking forward to their retirement date. There is absolutely no concern whatsoever for the future of the accounting profession.
It’s interesting to see that for decades, you would only get promoted after years of proving you could do the work to now where “staff” are reviewing the work from the start. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
I feel like that’s a step backwards but I guess at this point companies just want a rubber stamp and move on with business.
AI will eliminate certain monotonous tasks but will not replace critical thinking skills.
“AI will eliminate certain monotonous tasks but will not replace critical thinking skills.”
I don’t know how anyone can make such a statement with any amount of certainty at this point. Five or ten years from now (possibly a lot less), I think you will be proven wrong.
Offshoring is much more relevant to this decision than AI, but every company is rushing right now to show AI-results in the current hype-cycle and hence that is what gets the headlines.
PWC will be doing less campus recruiting in the US, while earlier this week announcing plans to double headcount at PWC India over the next 5 years.
Anyone currently in the profession can see the writing on the wall: the plan is to have all the work done overseas, with a handful of people in the US here to review, sign-off and grease the deal wheel. How those handful will manage to do all this with no staff in the US is another story (ask any B4 partner under 50 how things are going), but the ‘powers that be’ will be gone by the time this all hits the fan.
The outsourcing of white-collar jobs overseas will have far more dire consequences to the future of this profession than any AI-chatbot.
“…but the ‘powers that be’ will be gone by the time this all hits the fan.”
I think this is a key point. No one cares about the future of the accounting profession. It seems like the “leaders” of our profession have already quit on trying to save the accounting profession. Now they are pivoting to just making as much money as they possibly can for themselves before the end (or their retirement, whichever comes first).
Good points on the offshoring. The intent is the same whether it’s AI or offshoring. It has been the goal of the “leaders” in our profession to eliminate as many staff from developed countries as possible in order to maximize their profits. Pure greed disguised as forward-thinking and innovation.
The ideal solution would be for AI to become smarter than all humans ever to walk the earth, except audit and tax partners.
If you can’t be bothered to train them properly, might as well not hire them in the first place!
Let service centers and AI do all the work; all that matters now is getting that handshake and securing the revenue!
The market knows just this one thing – regulators don’t seem to care anymore. This is going to work out fantastically well.
“The market knows just this one thing – regulators don’t seem to care anymore.”
Part of the problem is that the Big 4 firms own the regulators (and the politicians who keep the regulators in business). The PCAOB was on the chop block with the One Big Beautiful Bill, and then it miraculously survived in the end.