Accenture delaying joining of new employees by up to 1 year after announcing 19,000 job cuts

By Ankita GargAccenture recently announced the layoff of 19,000 employees and it has now come to light that the company is also delaying the joining of the new employees by up to one year. Accenture has been changing the start dates of the new hires because the company feels that it doesn’t need them right now for its business, which is something it has confirmed to Bloomberg. Many people are disappointed as they believe that they could have joined any other company if this is the case at Accenture.

“In some cases, for example for some recent graduates, we are adjusting start dates based on the needs of our clients and business,” Accenture spokeswoman Rachel Frey via an email. The cited source didn’t reveal any other details about how many have been affected by this and whether this would continue until next year.

A recent graduate, who declined to be identified, told Bloomberg that Accenture offered her a full-time consulting job in the UK, which was supposed to start in June this year. However, the joining was first delayed to October 2023 and then to early 2024. So, she decided to not take up the offer and leave the job as she didn’t want to wait for a year.

Following this, an Accenture recruiter apologized for the delay and asserted that “the decision was made to create the best possible new joiner experience,” according to the above-mentioned email. To compensate for the delay in joining, the company is reportedly

giving an “additional signing bonus to some people whose start dates have been pushed back,” according to the people who are familiar with the internal matter.

Some of the people who are annoyed about the delay in joining Accenture have expressed their disappointment on Reddit forums as well. “I have been strung along for months,” said one poster, a college senior, who has yet to receive a start date. “It just sucks because I missed out on a lot of companies and roles in the fall recruiting cycle,” a user said, talking about the time period when employers go to college campuses for placements.

Just a few weeks back, Accenture announced 19,000 job cuts and asserted that the layoff process will be completed within the next 18 months. India Today recently reported that Accenture has already started the layoff process internally. The employees have no clue about the layoff and the company’s HR has already started working on the list of people that will get removed. Those who haven’t been assigned any projects off late will be the first ones who will get laid off, as per our sources.