Recession Hitting Accounting Jobs At Top 50 Firms

Thu, 18 Jun 2009

Around 3,000 qualified accountants employed at top 50 firms have been made redundant over the past year, highlighting the impact of the recession on the accountancy profession.

According to figures from Accountancy Age’s annual survey, the UK’s top 50 firms (by income) had 59,695 qualified accountants on their books in 2008, but now employ 56,669 accounting professionals, representing a fall of nearly 5 per cent.

Experts expect the job cuts to continue as firms try to reduce costs in response to a sharp slowdown in demand for business finance and other services.

Last week, ‘Big Four’ accounting firm KPMG announced plans to cut around 200 tax jobs in the UK in an effort to reduce costs, despite only recently introducing a four-day working week to help avoid redundancies .

Phil Shohet, director of Kato Consultancy, which advises accounting firms, predicted that the top 50 companies may have to axe a similar number of jobs over the next 12 months in order to survive the recession.

He added that firms were cutting management staff but still recruiting graduates, which was forcing partners to ‘trade-down’ and handle more technical work.

As a result, clients are often relying on inexperienced graduates to help them through the economic downturn.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) urged firms to resist cutting training in order to reduce costs.

A spokesman said: "We know that firms that don’t train their staff are far more likely to have problems later on, whereas those that invest in developing the talents of their employees are much better placed to weather tough times."
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