Accenture To Cut 19,000 Jobs

Accenture said it would cut several thousand jobs worldwide, despite new bookings for the second quarter up 13% to $22 billion.

The Ireland-based IT services giant has also job a 9% increase in second-quarter revenue to $15.8 billion, but looking ahead, it lowered its full-year revenue and profit forecast.

The firm in a Filing with the SEC confirmed that it will cut approximately 2.5% of its workforce, or 19,000 jobs, saying there “continues to be significant economic and geopolitical uncertainty in many markets around the world, which has had and could continue to impact our business.”

Job cuts

The company said more than half of the jobs to be cut would relate to its non-billable corporate functions. News of the job cuts pleased investors, sending its shares up 6.4%.

“As we continue to hire, including to support our strategic growth priorities, in the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we launched actions to streamline our operations and transform our non-billable business functions to reduce costs,” the company said in its filing.

“Over the next 18 months, these actions are expected to result in the departure of approximately 19,000 people (or 2.5% of our current workforce), and we expect that more than half of these departures will be people in our management functions. non-billable business. ”

Accenture currently has 738,000 employees, up from 699,000 at the end of February 2022.

“For the second quarter of fiscal 2023, attrition, excluding involuntary layoffs, was 12%, compared to 18% in the second quarter of fiscal 2022,” he said. “We are evaluating voluntary attrition, adjusting new hire levels and using involuntary layoffs as a way to keep our supply of skills and resources in balance with changing customer demand.”

The company said it now expects annual revenue growth for fiscal 2023 to be between 8 and 10%, down from 8 to 11%.

Economic and geopolitical uncertainty

“Our results of operations are affected by economic conditions, including macroeconomic conditions, the overall inflationary environment and levels of business confidence,” the company said.

“There continues to be significant economic and geopolitical uncertainty in many markets around the world, which has had and may continue to have an impact on our business, particularly with respect to wage inflation and the exchange rate volatility,” he said. “In some cases, these conditions have slowed the pace and level of customer spending.”

The company said it plans to spend around $1.2bn (£0.97bn) on severance, but hopes to save around $1.5bn (£1.2bn ) by closing offices around the world.

Job cuts at Accenture will take place around the world, including the UK, although there is no confirmation of the number of job losses in the UK at the time of writing.

Accenture employs 11,000 people in the UK and in 2020 it cut 700-900 jobs in the UK amid the Covid-19 pandemic.