Accounting rollercoaster. Millennials are yesterday's news. Desk duty calls again.

The past few months have truly been a rollercoaster ride for the accounting profession and industry as a whole. Leading firms including among the ‘Big 4’ have recently announced layoffs, with another prominent firm announcing a 3% reduction last week. Professional services spending is expected to see an uptick going into Q4, and certainly into 2025 given interest rate reductions, and enterprise spending ticking back up. However, these layoffs also may be a nod to the emerging workforce trends such as building more flex in the deployment models or automating many tasks with AI. The World Economic Forum predicts that banking and insurance roles are most impacted by AI automation, but over ten years ago, CPA.com called out many bookkeeping roles as being near guaranteed to shift from humans to bots. ?

Now, set aside the notion of replacing people with robots, and the general perceived decline in accounting work and prospects – there's the flip side to all of this. There has been a huge increase in private equity interest in the accounting market. Buyouts, mergers, and cash injections are seeking to make the industry more attractive to talent. Accounting is a safe industry, while the connected business units (consulting and auditing for example) often have great upside balanced with higher risk exposure. Accounting on the other hand is – well – accounting. It’s safe, it’s predictable, it’s mathematical. Grant Thornton, Baker Tilly, Citrin Cooperman, EisnerAmper and others have taken on PE money in recent years. While others such as BDO with their Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) have funded the business in a different way, promoting a benefit to the existing workforce. ?

Most kids don’t go to school dreaming of being an Accountant. They want to be astronauts, doctors, engineers, or social media influencers perhaps among today’s generation. That being said, the industry is making a big push to become more attractive to the Gen Z entrants into the workplace. Raising the bar on pay to compete against other big paying finance roles is a starting point. The other notable one called out in the article is offering different roles for accountants. Gone are the days of only being able to offer cubicles and every shade of beige in the office for workers. Instead, firms like Google and Apple are deploying those with accounting expertise and backgrounds to areas such as fraud prevention. Improved training programs, and better prospects at the end of a grueling examination process will continue to attract this population.?

Speaking of younger generations entering the workforce, this one hit hard. As a millennial, we’ve had our fair share of criticism. Many boomers consider my generation entitled, but it’s the younger generation that gives me more concern. That’s not just my kids telling me I’m not cool when trying to relate to the latest fads and trends at school. No, millennials are being kicked to the kerb by Gen Z’s, particularly in tech roles. 41% of workers in the tech industry are between 25 and 39 years old. Even more impressive, 7% of the entire tech workforce are under 25 (way to feel old!). This demographic has grown?20 times greater in the tech industry than others. Consider that together with the average tenure for Gen Z’s being 2 years. We’re going to see some massive turnover and retention issues in the next decade. ?

Lastly this week, let’s talk about the return to office (RTO) debate once more. Amazon’s CEO just announced a RTO full-time for all of it’s workforce. There has been considerable debate, and pushback. Some skeptics highlight that it’s the easy way out for firms who want to avoid making RIFs. Others say it’s an outdated way of looking at presence equaling productivity. Some observers call out the productivity stats with remote workers. Others urge caution with this approach given its impact on morale and narrowing talent access. KPMG just released a study probing 1,300 global CEOs on a range of topics including RTO. A massive 79% said they expect the hybrid workforce of today to be back in the office by 2027. This represents a huge shift from the 34% reported earlier this year. What’s even more interesting is that 86% of these CEOs also commented about rewarding employees to do so. Why the huge shift? Customer pressure? shareholder pressure? loneliness in those corner offices?...one to keep an eye on for sure. ?

Stat of the week:?

40% - less people took the CPA exam in the US last year than a decade ago ?