PricewaterhouseCoopers makes large number of redundancies

jsmith001

Hi, I work for PwC and just received some bad news earlier this week. They have made me and most of my peers redundant effective immediately. Am very disheartened.

Especially at a time when they did an across the firm 10% paycut in the early part of the year; followed by already large scale redundancies across their infrastructure and all other groups such as tax etc in Jan / Feb.

This is also so strange when they are busy getting contracts like the NAMA contract (which was in the papers over the weekend!). I have been completely non stop busy for months at an end (like 12 hours a day at times) and now this happens.

They have fired more than 200 people since January, a much higher number than their peers like KPMG , Deloitte and EY. At least the peer firms did it once in early Jan / Feb and that was it. We have been going through this now for 6 months.


Am not sure what to do now.........worked 16 hour days for them at a stretch and now for this to happen...........Am completely crushed and broken (i am sorry if this not right forum for this , but am really disheartened and felt that only other firm folks could understand me pain).

I can understand redundancies when a company is being crushed by the economy, but not in circumstances where there is more work than staff.

Prezatch

Sorry to hear it. What level were you at if you don't mind me asking? AM1?

ManwitaPlan

Are they making redundancies or just not renewing contracts?

Personally I feel the Big4 firms are taking the p1ss. It smacks to me of taking advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable. Will revenues really fall that much this year to justify the massive pay cuts and widespread redundancies?

prinz

ManwitaPlan wrote: »

Personally I feel the Big4 firms are taking the p1ss. It smacks to me of taking advantage of people when they are at their most vulnerable. Will revenues really fall that much this year to justify the massive pay cuts and widespread redundancies?

Small firms are at the same racket. Has put me off accountancy as a profession tbh.

MrMatisse

Were you in or out of contract?

Sounds rough alright

seven-iron

Sorry to hear about that mate.

A few possible reasons PwC are cutting so much more than anyone else.

Number 1: For the last half dozen or so years they have hired circa 250 people. A huge amount by any measure.
Number 2: Clients are looking for reductions in fees as work has become more valuable.
Number 3: Some clients arent paying at all because they are trying to survive. The problem isnt the lack of work but the lack of cash coming in. As a result staff need to be cut in order to cut costs in the short term.
number 4: PwC is some animal of a practice (Good pay rates, gym, private bus, free coffee so on). The bigger they are the harder they fall.

Ideo

ManwitaPlan wrote: »

Are they making redundancies or just not renewing contracts?

a bit of both. they are only offering limited contracts to people coming out of contract (which they stated a couple of months ago) but they made more redundancies there last week. they hadn't really made any redundancies in audit up to the point, but they had made redundancies in other depts

jsmith001

Am (:( sorry was at AM 2 level). Am on the audit side. Was on contract.

I can understand the lack of cash aspect, but at the same time I could then see the need for redundancies in support departments or departments that are peripheral (tax, local audit as opposed to investment, banking etc).

My department is flat out busy, I guess to put it in perspective because they have in this week itself fired in excess of 20 people , the people who are left behind now are actually very stressed because they dont have the capacity to deal with the work.

This is actually a scenario where the remainder will work loads of overtime to make up for the people fired. In fact they have actually now been follow up resignations handed in by some of the people left over.

That's the frustration - i can understand being fired when you are there and essentially twiddling your thumbs because there is no work. Its another to be fired when all the firm wants to do is maintain margins on work that is existing and is fact rapidly expanding. I am sure there must be something not right (legal) with that.

I hear rumors of even more resignations happening ( at AM 1 and at more senior levels) over the next few weeks as people are not ready to deal with doing massive amounts of overtime because of decisions that did not involve them.

A number of my peers who were let go were completely shocked, myself was slightly more prepared, but even so, actually broke down when told.

I guess at least we had a week to wrap up, in other departments folks were called in at 5 pm and simply asked not to come in next day. (they were actually escorted out by security). Completely unexpected. This has also happened to a large number in the redundancies that took place earlier this year.

I am pretty sure other companies and other audit firms did not carry it out in this fashion.

crazzzzy

That's awful. Im glad I missed out on my first class honours degree now cause I'd signed a training contract for audit on the condition I got a first class honours.

Are they making trainees redundant or just qualified staff? What will happen to trainees studying chartered accounting if they can't get another contract?

A weeks notice isn't much either. Will they give you redundacy package?

MrMatisse

what year is am2? not familiar with it.

Ideo

crazzzzy wrote: »

Are they making trainees redundant or just qualified staff? What will happen to trainees studying chartered accounting if they can't get another contract?

Just qualified staff. It's hard for any accounting firm to let go of people who are in training contract because the contract is with the ICAI also

Really-Stressed wrote: »

what year is am2? not familiar with it.

Its like qualified plus a years experience

Prezatch

Really-Stressed wrote: »

what year is am2? not familiar with it.

Around the 5th year

MikeCork2009

Jez that's awful. Sorry to hear that. I interviewed twice with PWC in London at the start of the year for a graduate economic consultancy role and got through to the final assesment section. At each stage I asked them if they would be recruiting less due to the economic conditions and each time got the standard spin "Oh we are in a good position....our business is structured to take advantage of the downturn" Anyhow even after doing what I thought was a top class assessment I got a call a week or so later saying there was no job for me and when I pressed them they said they were not in a position to take on as many graduates as they had expected ffs. I never even got any feedback as to how I did in my assessment (even though they promised a number of times to give feedback to all candidates) which makes me even more suspicious that they just decided to cut their graduate programme.

MonsterMob

MikeCork2009 wrote: »

Jez that's awful. Sorry to hear that. I interviewed twice with PWC in London at the start of the year for a graduate economic consultancy role and got through to the final assesment section. At each stage I asked them if they would be recruiting less due to the economic conditions and each time got the standard spin "Oh we are in a good position....our business is structured to take advantage of the downturn" Anyhow even after doing what I thought was a top class assessment I got a call a week or so later saying there was no job for me and when I pressed them they said they were not in a position to take on as many graduates as they had expected ffs. I never even got any feedback as to how I did in my assessment (even though they promised a number of times to give feedback to all candidates) which makes me even more suspicious that they just decided to cut their graduate programme.

they will still be taking on 150-200 graduates this year. they will be doing the work that the OP was doing at a much reduce charge as they will be on about 40% of his/her wage. will put a lot of pressure on the managers I presume as their work won't be anywhere near as good.

BlackWizard

MonsterMob wrote: »

they will still be taking on 150-200 graduates this year. they will be doing the work that the OP was doing at a much reduce charge as they will be on about 40% of his/her wage. will put a lot of pressure on the managers I presume as their work won't be anywhere near as good.

That sounds pure speculation just to wind people up and get them roiled.

Care to back that statement up with something substantial?

djdeclan

BlackWizard wrote: »

That sounds pure speculation just to wind people up and get them roiled.

Care to back that statement up with something substantial?

In a nutshell thats how accountancy practice works; the majority of the practice are trainees - when they qualify they become very expensive so you get rid of them. You keep turning them over every year; graduates in & qualifieds out. It keeps the main overhead (wages) low

MonsterMob

BlackWizard wrote: »

That sounds pure speculation just to wind people up and get them roiled.

Care to back that statement up with something substantial?

My back up is the OP's story! She qualified a year ago and is now being let go yet still they are hiring loads of graduates. Before the recession and when times were good, most people once they had finished their training contracts left and mainly got new jobs with clients they audited or went travelling and the firm budgeted for this. Now though people are not leaving as they don't think they will get jobs elsewhere so the firm is letting them go. Add to this the downward pressure on their fees and the fees they are not recouping.

It seems that that you don't work in this industry because if you did you would see have seen the huge turnover of staff that the Big 4 have. I'm in the same position shortly and I am expecting the worse...

Peter44

While it does suck to lose your job, you forgot to mention that everyone that PwC let go last week were given a cheque for €17,000. Thats surely equal to 6 months wages after tax?? As someone who just finished in big 4 recently I can state with confidence that someone with PwC on their CV will get a job easily enough. I know this from experience plus from plenty of others who finished big 4 at the same time as me. It wont take 6 months so the ironic thing is that you will prob benefit financially from this.

suckslikeafox

Peter44 wrote: »

While it does suck to lose your job, you forgot to mention that everyone that PwC let go last week were given a cheque for €17,000. Thats surely equal to 6 months wages after tax?? As someone who just finished in big 4 recently I can state with confidence that someone with PwC on their CV will get a job easily enough. I know this from experience plus from plenty of others who finished big 4 at the same time as me. It wont take 6 months so the ironic thing is that you will prob benefit financially from this.

Feck it, I'm in my first year and I'd happily leave for half that amount

BlackWizard

MonsterMob wrote: »

It seems that that you don't work in this industry because if you did you would see have seen the huge turnover of staff that the Big 4 have. I'm in the same position shortly and I am expecting the worse...

Turnover is high in lots of sectors. Graduates come then they get let go it's pretty normal everywhere. High turnover is normal too depending on the sector. I work in consultancy services.

But to state that any company is replacing experienced staff with younger cheaper staff I would have to seriously ask you to back that statement up or retract it.

Hanley

BlackWizard wrote: »

But to state that any company is replacing experienced staff with younger cheaper staff I would have to seriously ask you to back that statement up or retract it.

Seriously, that is the norm in audit. EVERYWHERE does it.

MonsterMob

BlackWizard wrote: »

But to state that any company is replacing experienced staff with younger cheaper staff I would have to seriously ask you to back that statement up or retract it.

My example in my previous about people coming out of contract and not leaving the firm like before was explained to us by a partner when they had a meeting about our 10% paycut. Look at all the solicitor firms, they are letting go of staff yet they are still taking on people who just passed their FE1's, its the exact same thing.

Also, demanding me to retract a statement regarding about an industry that I work in and know about and you don't is ridiclous. Look at other people's comments, this is the reality of what is happening and its not just confined to the auditing sector, why do you think Dell moved out of limerick and over to Poland? Because they can pay their employees over there a third of what they pay here...

Running Bing

BlackWizard wrote: »

Turnover is high in lots of sectors. Graduates come then they get let go it's pretty normal everywhere. High turnover is normal too depending on the sector. I work in consultancy services.

But to state that any company is replacing experienced staff with younger cheaper staff I would have to seriously ask you to back that statement up or retract it.

Its not like this is some shadowy conspiracy being exposed, its common knowledge for anybody who has even the most rudimentary knowledge of the industry.

Its quite simple, when times we're good people qualified and then p1ssed of to well paid jobs in industry and abroad. They got their nice job, the big 4 got shot of the added expense of the higher wage and the grad got a job to take up the slack. Everybody was happy.

The big change now is that the industry jobs are not there and people dont want to leave a cushy big 4 job in this climate so naturally more and more people want to stay on at a time when big 4 firms are looking to cut costs more than ever.

The Big4 firms simply have no need for that many experienced employee's. Why pay somebody 50k when a lot of the work can be dont by somebody getting 20k?

Its not a conspiracy, its not scaremongering, its simple business sense.

BlackWizard

I know it happens in the industry. But to name a single out a company and start spreading rumours about their business practices seems a bit unfair to me. Like I said. If you can post up proof of PWC making senior staff redundant only to be suddenly replaced by graduates then please do so.

I know a certain big4 company are currently releasing a lot of senior staff in an organisational shuffle which will end up with a broader lower paid base of staff than it currently has. But they are not replacing any senior staff with a graduates.

Hanley

BlackWizard wrote: »

I know it happens in the industry. But to name a single out a company and start spreading rumours about their business practices seems a bit unfair to me. Like I said. If you can post up proof of PWC making senior staff redundant only to be suddenly replaced by graduates then please do so.

Seriously?? Look at employee demographics.

Say they take on 200 juniors this year, 75% of them make it thru the contract, you've roughly 150 fully qualified ACA's at the end of it, do you think they ALL get kept on or stay??? Or course not.... the ones that do take a supervisory capacity and the cycle repeats.

It's the nature of the game. It's utterly pointless and a waste of client money to have a fully qualified staff on site doing menial tasks like bank recs and ticking and bashing.

It's not a uniquely PWC thing, it's pervasive across the industry.

I know a certain big4 company are currently releasing a lot of senior staff in an organisational shuffle which will end up with a broader lower paid base of staff than it currently has. But they are not replacing any senior staff with a graduates.

That's EXACTLY what people have been talking about here. They aren't being "replaced" in the context of newly hired grads becoming managers, but you don't need to keep an entire intake on to complete jobs when a minority of them acting in a senior role can provide guidance and support to juniors ,which effectively leads to the same job being done, for less fees.

This is coming from a 1st year in a medium practice by the way!!! I'd say 10-15% of our recently qualifieds were kept on.

MonsterMob

BlackWizard wrote: »

I know it happens in the industry. But to name a single out a company and start spreading rumours about their business practices seems a bit unfair to me. Like I said. If you can post up proof of PWC making senior staff redundant only to be suddenly replaced by graduates then please do so.

These new graduates aren't going in as senior staff such as managers, they are replacing people who are have just come out of their training contracts or are 1/2 years post qualified! If you read my original post you would see me pointing out that as a result of this it is going to put more pressure on managers since they will be reviewing their work.

LightningBolt

BlackWizard wrote: »

I know it happens in the industry. But to name a single out a company and start spreading rumours about their business practices seems a bit unfair to me. Like I said. If you can post up proof of PWC making senior staff redundant only to be suddenly replaced by graduates then please do so.

How hard is it to understand that people just move on up a level replaced by people beneath them.

Trainees become Trainee 2's, Trainee 2's become Asst.Mgrs, Asst.Mgrs become Mgrs etc.

A Trainee isn't directly replacing a manager or whoever it is that's let go, they're simply allowing everyone else to move up a level. Every bloody practice does it, it's not one specific place:rolleyes:

BlackWizard

Hanley wrote: »

Seriously?? Look at employee demographics.

Say they take on 200 juniors this year, 75% of them make it thru the contract, you've roughly 150 fully qualified ACA's at the end of it, do you think they ALL get kept on or stay??? Or course not.... the ones that do take a supervisory capacity and the cycle repeats.

It's the nature of the game. It's utterly pointless and a waste of client money to have a fully qualified staff on site doing menial tasks like bank recs and ticking and bashing.

It's not a uniquely PWC thing, it's pervasive across the industry.




That's EXACTLY what people have been talking about here. They aren't being "replaced" in the context of newly hired grads becoming managers, but you don't need to keep an entire intake on to complete jobs when a minority of them acting in a senior role can provide guidance and support to juniors ,which effectively leads to the same job being done, for less fees.

This is coming from a 1st year in a medium practice by the way!!! I'd say 10-15% of our recently qualifieds were kept on.

I understand what was being said now alright. Just got the impression it was a straight swapping of staff in the company for lower paid staff. But it's just the usual business shuffle. Happens everywhere alright

Arkle

jsmith001 wrote: »

Hi, I work for PwC and just received some bad news earlier this week. They have made me and most of my peers redundant effective immediately. Am very disheartened.

Especially at a time when they did an across the firm 10% paycut in the early part of the year; followed by already large scale redundancies across their infrastructure and all other groups such as tax etc in Jan / Feb.

This is also so strange when they are busy getting contracts like the NAMA contract (which was in the papers over the weekend!). I have been completely non stop busy for months at an end (like 12 hours a day at times) and now this happens.

They have fired more than 200 people since January, a much higher number than their peers like KPMG , Deloitte and EY. At least the peer firms did it once in early Jan / Feb and that was it. We have been going through this now for 6 months.


Am not sure what to do now.........worked 16 hour days for them at a stretch and now for this to happen...........Am completely crushed and broken (i am sorry if this not right forum for this , but am really disheartened and felt that only other firm folks could understand me pain).

I can understand redundancies when a company is being crushed by the economy, but not in circumstances where there is more work than staff.

What a load of crap! Its no way nr 200.....................!! i know many people at PwC and i know that they r not making that many job cuts there. All of my contacts who have been let go said that the nos were'nt that gr8 and that they got a lot of hlp with cvs and job search. PwC is a big firm and I knw wont be immune form job changes so i know what they do, they really have to do. All the big 4 firms have done the same things.

Hanley

Arkle wrote: »

What a load of crap! Its no way nr 200.....................!! i know many people at PwC and i know that they r not making that many job cuts there. All of my contacts who have been let go said that the nos were'nt that gr8 and that they got a lot of hlp with cvs and job search. PwC is a big firm and I knw wont be immune form job changes so i know what they do, they really have to do. All the big 4 firms have done the same things.

The job cuts include people coming out of contract presumably. And don't be so sure... just because they're not on the front line doesn't mean a lot of support staff haven't gone too.


Circa 20% of the staff where I am have been let go over the last year, they're the figures I've been told anyway. I'm in a firm of approx. 300 staff and the majority of them are people I wouldn't know, and everyone who heard the final tally was shocked, including some members of management. So don't just think cos you haven't heard it hasn't happened.