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PwC is laying off about 1,500 employees in the US, becoming the latest Big Four firm to make cuts in the wake of historically low staff turnover.
The lay-offs amount to 2 per cent of PwC US’s 75,000 workforce and were concentrated mainly in its audit and tax businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.
The job cuts were the result of a months-long process of examining the business, according to one person familiar with the decision, and came after PwC had previously moved hundreds of US staff from unneeded posts to higher-growth units.
“This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step,” a PwC spokesperson said.
Affected staff were being told on Monday and Tuesday this week, the people said. Hundreds were alerted by a Microsoft Teams meeting invite sent to their email marked “time sensitive”.
Those laid off included many who had only recently joined PwC. One person who started in September told the Financial Times they were “devastated”. “Everyone was completely blindsided by the lay-offs today,” the person said. Another person affected said: “Some of us were up for promotion, but instead of a promotion and a pay bump we’re now getting cut off.”
The firm has also decided to curtail campus hiring due to lower staff turnover, but would stand by offers it had already made to last year’s interns, who are scheduled to join later this year, the person said.
The new round of lay-offs is the second ordered by US senior partner Paul Griggs since he took the helm a year ago. In September, he restructured PwC’s products and technology group with the loss of about 1,800 jobs. Some of the additional lay-offs conducted on Monday included more staff from that division.
Low staff turnover has compounded financial pressures on the Big Four firms, which hire tens of thousands of new graduates each year across the US. The advisory arms of their businesses have slowed sharply since a post-pandemic boom in technology consulting work and a hoped-for increase in mergers and acquisitions work this year has been derailed by stock market turmoil.
A month ago, Deloitte executives told staff on an internal call that the group would be laying off staff across its advisory business, including in the government contracting unit affected by the cost-cutting drive of Elon Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency.
“Overall demand for Deloitte’s services remains strong,” a spokesperson for the firm said at the time. “We are taking modest personnel actions based on moderating growth in certain areas, our government clients’ evolving needs, and low levels of voluntary attrition.”
KPMG also cut staff in the US in November, The Wall Street Journal reported, totalling 330 people, or about 4 per cent of its audit division workforce. The firm said it was “addressing continued low levels of attrition”.
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