Firm Management
PwC to Give Pink Slips to 1,800 Employees Next Month
The Big Four firm is trimming about 2.5% of its U.S. workforce, primarily in its advisory practice and products and technology operations.
Sep. 12, 2024
PwC is trimming approximately 2.5% of its U.S. workforce—roughly 1,800 employees—primarily in the Big Four firm’s advisory practice and products and technology operations, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sept. 11.
The layoffs, about half of which are offshore, impact employees ranging from associates to managing directors and include business services, audit, and tax, the WSJ reported. PwC plans to notify those affected in October.
PwC is also planning to restructure its technology group as the firm, like its major competitors, are experiencing a downturn in demand for advisory services.
The WSJ reported:
PwC on Wednesday announced its plans for layoffs and the restructuring in a memo to U.S. staff obtained by The Wall Street Journal. “There will be an element of resource action that will impact a relatively small proportion of our people, something that is never easy,” Paul Griggs, PwC’s U.S. leader, said in the memo.
“Ultimately, we are positioning our firm for the future, creating capacity to invest, and anticipating and reacting to the market opportunities of today and tomorrow,” Griggs added.
Bloomberg Tax reported on Wednesday that in-house technology staff will be “embedded” into the firm’s core service lines while the firm targets technology investments toward “key assets.” New technologies like generative artificial intelligence and streamlined business services functions are among priority areas for the firm, according to Griggs’ memo.
Griggs began his four-year term as PwC US senior partner on July 1.
The WSJ also noted that the announcement of the pending layoffs was made on the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks—a day in which PwC lost five professionals.
The timing of that announcement wasn’t lost on some people. In a thread about the layoffs on r/PwC, one person wrote, “Imagine announcing layoffs on 9/11 and then tieing back to people who lost their lives in the same comm. F**king wild.” In another thread on r/Accounting, someone wrote, “Damn, announcing it today of all days?” Another person said, “Yeah, they could have done this on literally any other day. … No reason why it had to be today.”
PwC said the last formal layoffs in its U.S. unit occurred in 2009, according to the WSJ; however, the firm has been conducting stealth layoffs for many years, including during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The firm said “it has been an outlier among the Big Four over the past two years by not laying off anyone in the U.S. and having no plans to do so,” the WSJ wrote.
“Yeah this is bs and they know it, at least on the advisory side. PwC doesn’t traditionally do or announce mass layoffs, but they do it quietly throughout the year, regardless of performance. I’ve known several people who were good performers let go over the last couple years,” one person wrote on r/Accounting. “PwC tiers you, and they only have so many slots based on business expectations. You can be a strong performer but get a mid/low tier for reasons other than performance, e.g. simply because you didn’t play politics enough, didn’t have strong counselor to support in the circle meetings, they need a certain number of people in that tier, etc. If you don’t make it in a certain tier (regardless of performance) you may be cut, and claiming that’s anything other than business need-based (i.e. a layoff), when the number of slots are based on business need expectations, is disingenuous and lying.”
Another person responded, “This is exactly right and the numbers/percents allowed in each group change based on whether the firm is looking to get rid of people.”
As Bloomberg Tax noted, PwC’s layoffs are in line with recent downsizing at its competitors, including Deloitte, which laid off 1,200 workers, and KPMG, which cut 2,700 jobs through a pair of layoffs in 2023. EY eliminated 3,000 jobs that same year. Grant Thornton, the seventh largest firm in the U.S., let go of 350 employees last May.