2023 has proven to be a tough year economically for many companies. There has been a huge lift in the tech market related to AI however other industries have suffered. Consulting is one of those industries and that is why the big 4 accounting firms have started to lay people off. Most of their layoffs are in the consulting practices. The layoffs in consulting also relate to private equity and M&A activity. This is as a result of a slowdown in investments around the world.

EY – 3,000 layoffs – April 2023 – US

  • 30+ partners in December 2023

Deloitte 1,200 layoffs – April 2023 – US

KPMG – 3,000 Layoffs – As of June 2023 – US

Grant Thornton – 300 Layoffs – May 2023 – US

PwC – 150 in Canada. 1,000 Globally as of November 2023

The reason that the EY layoffs are so much larger than the other companies is because EY had a failed break up plan. As part of that failed breakup plan, EY had to lay off a bunch of employees to make sure that partners can still get good compensation.

Updates

May 30 – Goldman is going to be laying off 250 employees after laying off 4,000 employees earlier in the year.

May 24 – Meta plans to lay of 6,000 employees after letting go of 4,000 employees previously. This was part of their plans to lay off 10,000 employees.

PwC is set to layoff 1,000 people globally. This announcement was made in November 2023.

December 2023 – EY announced 31 partner layoffs. This impacts more than 10% of the partners of the US firm. There are also junior consultants at EY that will be losing their job as well.