PwC has announced plans to cut up to 600 jobs amid a slowdown in demand for its services.
One of the main reasons for the redundancies is also being put down to the Big 4’s attrition rates, which have dropped from 15% to 10%, as openings in rival firms and tech start-ups fall off.
PwC’s UK chair Kevin Ellis told the Financial Times that the firm had decided to launch the redundancy round rather than delaying or cancelling job offers to hundreds of graduates and school-leavers.
Eillis told reporters this is partly a matter of fairness in not cutting off opportunities for people starting their careers and who have not yet been trained. He also felt that slowing down hiring would also have a negative impact on the firm’s diversity and social mobility efforts as new hires are generally more diverse than the organisation as a whole.
He also promised staff in their first year at PwC will not be included in the redundancy programme.
Many UK newspapers are reporting that the news comes just months after PwC revealed its 1,000 UK partners would be paid £906,000 each.
Ellis stressed that it was important that the firm continues to offer competitive pay packets to senior staff.
The cuts amount to around 2.4% of UK employees (there are 25,000), will mainly be in the advisory business. However, tax staff will also be hit. The firm said it was firstly looking for voluntary redundancies.
