PwC US to cut 1,800 jobs over restructuring, its first layoffs in 15 years

PwC's US unit will lay off around 1,800 workers, its first formal job cuts since 2009, as part of a restructuring process amid decreased demand for certain services, its US leader, Paul Griggs said

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The US unit of PwC will lay off about 1,800 workers, marking its first formal job cuts since 2009 as the company seeks to restructure its technology group. This comes amid a slowdown in demand for some of its advisory business, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Half of the anticipated layoffs will target offshore positions, impacting a wide range of employees from associates to managing directors. The report indicates that departments such as business services, audit, and tax are expected to face significant reductions. In its US division, about 2.5 per cent of the workforce will be affected, with notifications set to go out in October.

The action will impact “a relatively small proportion of our people, something that is never easy,” Paul Griggs, PwC’s US leader, said in the memo to the firm staff, the WSJ report said. PwC said the last formal layoffs in its US unit occurred in 2009.

PwC China crisis

PwC is also grappling with a crisis in China after it recently lost Country Garden Holdings as a client. This came amid the scrutiny over PwC’s auditing role in the China Evergrande Group, which has been accused of a $78 billion fraud. As a result, there have been cost-cutting measures, and layoffs at PwC China. 

On September 5, news agency Reuters reported that over 50 Chinese firms, including PwC’s largest mainland client Bank of China, have dropped the firm as their auditor or scrapped plans to rehire it. Country Garden said that their decision was driven by P’s failure to fulfill the timetable to publish its audited 2023 financial statements.

One of the big four accounting firms, PwC’s latest action comes when its rivals EY, KPMG, and Deloitte have collectively laid off thousands of US workers over the past two years. Similar to the IT sector, the layoffs are being partly attributed to the pandemic-era hiring frenzy.