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It’s going to be a gloomy October for some 1,800 PwC employees. The Big Four firm has announced it’ll be laying off around 2.5% of its US unit’s workforce next month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
About half of the job cuts will take place offshore. The cuts will occur mainly in PwC’s US advisory, products, and technology operations functions.
This is the first “formal” round of layoffs PwC has conducted since 2009, though in 2017, it offered some staff a choice between taking new jobs following a restructuring or leaving the firm.
The layoffs come on the heels of a “structural overhaul” at PwC, the WSJ said. In 2021, the firm consolidated its tax reporting and accounting services under a single “trust solutions” banner. After Paul Griggs took over as US leader this May, he separated those back out into separate business lines. Consulting is PwC’s third main business.
“Execution of our strategy requires tough decisions, including those that impact our workforce,” Griggs wrote in a memo to staff Bloomberg Tax obtained. “We are positioning our firm for the future, creating capacity to invest, and anticipating and reacting to the market opportunities.”
The layoffs will also occur during a period of decline in demand for consulting services. Consulting is a major money-maker for the Big Four: Half of the firms’ combined revenue came from consulting in 2023, Bloomberg Tax reported.
During the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, many companies sought advisory services, and many firms ramped up hiring in consequence. But high interest rates and a slower economy dampened demand in 2023. Deloitte, EY, and KPMG all made sizable staff cuts in the past year, as did top-ten accounting firm Grant Thornton and consulting firms Accenture and McKinsey. Now, it seems, the consulting downturn has hit PwC as well.