Accenture Layoffs Impacting 19,000 Workers Globally

Accenture on Thursday confirmed layoffs impacting 19,000 workers, or 2.5% of its global workforce to reduce costs.

Accenture announced the layoffs in its latest quarterly report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The professional services company said its workforce grew by 39,000 over the past year.

“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 will take place over the next year-and-a-half. More than one-half of the workers are in non-billable corporate functions.

Increasing Compensation Due to Inflation

For the second quarter of fiscal 2023, Accenture‘s attrition, excluding involuntary terminations, was 12%, down from 18% in the second quarter of fiscal 2022.

“We evaluate voluntary attrition, adjust levels of new hiring and use involuntary terminations as a means to keep our supply of skills and resources in balance with changes in client demand,” it said. “In addition, we adjust compensation in order to attract and retain appropriate numbers of qualified employees. For the majority of our people, compensation increases become effective Dec. 1 of each fiscal year. Given the overall inflationary environment, compensation has been and continues to increase faster than in prior years.”

For its second quarter of fiscal 2023, ending Feb. 28, Accenture saw strong demand across its business. Revenue was US $15.8 billion, a 5% increase. New bookings totaled $22.1 billion, an increase of 13%.

Julie Sweet is Accenture’s chair and CEO.

Accenture’s Julie Sweet

“Our strong financial results this quarter again demonstrate that our ability to bring together industry, functional and technology expertise as well as managed services continues to differentiate us with our clients,” she said. “Our record bookings reflect the confidence and trust that our clients have in us to create value and help them transform at speed. We are also taking steps to lower our costs in fiscal year 2024 and beyond while continuing to invest in our business and our people to capture the significant growth opportunities ahead.”

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