Accenture is firing 19,000 employees to cut cost, says will resume hiring in late 2023 after layoffs complete

By Ankita GargAccenture is the latest tech company to announce the layoff of thousands of employees. The IT firm has confirmed that it is firing as many as 19,000 workers in the fear of a worsening global economy. This is about 2.5 percent of its workforce. But, the good thing is that Accenture won’t immediately eliminate employees and it asserted that the layoff process will continue over the next 18 months.

“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 over half of these departures will consist of people in our non-billable corporate functions,” the company said in the regulatory filing.

The IT firm also revealed that it would continue to hire new people in late 2023. “While we continue to hire, especially to support our strategic growth priorities, during the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we initiated actions to streamline our operations and transform our non-billable corporate functions to reduce costs,” it said.

The layoffs are being done to save costs, according to the details provided by the company itself. Another reason behind the layoff is also overhiring. Accenture hired new employees in the past to meet current and projected future demand. Following this, the company’s headcount increased to around 738,000 as of February 2023, which is up from 699,000 in February 2022.

Additionally, the IT company has also revealed that it has predicted lower revenue and profit numbers for this year as it worries about the economic downturn. Accenture has anticipated that its annual revenue growth would be in the range of 8 percent to 10 percent in local currency, instead of 8 percent to 11 per cent which is something that it was expecting previously. Accenture has forecasted that its third-quarter revenue could be in the range of $16.1 billion and $16.7 billion.

“Accenture expects revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 to be in the range of $16.1 billion to $16.7 billion, an increase of 3 percent to 7 percent in local currency, reflecting the company’s assumption of an approximately negative 3.5 percent foreign-exchange impact compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2022,” it said in a statement.

Tech layoffs in March 2023

Meta also recently announced the layoff of 10,000 more employees in the name of saving money. The company had already fired 11,000 workers earlier this year, claiming that it is doing so on the basis of performance and that this will also save money for the betterment of the firm. Facebook’s parent company also stated that the move is also because of the slower growth and reduction in revenue because of economic downturn.

Amazon also announced 9,000 job cuts, just a few weeks after it confirmed that 18,000 employees will be asked to leave the company, as part of its layoff process. Logitech also slashed headcounts by 300 as the company was witnessing decline in sales.