Follow-Up On More Big 4 Layoffs

As we’ve seen from the comments on my PwC layoff post and other mail I’ve received, PwC is not the only one to be reducing staff via “counseling out” , “forced ranking” , “the Italian greyhounds ate the workpapers…”, or whatever other excuse they give. Both Deloitte and KPMG have also seen cuts, per my mail.

So E&Y, let me hear from you guys, please, to round out the info.

Dear Ms. McKenna
…the firms appear to be spending substantially less on new hire training. Uncle D., for instance, trained all new hires in a specific service line in Phoenix for the last few years at a swanky hotel/resort. This year, though, they are dumping us in god’s armpit: North Jersey. Ostensibly, it would seem, to keep costs down since most new hires are in the NE and it was the Midwest that was recently whacked by the “counseling out”.

Dear Reader,
Yes, this is aligned with the idea of fewer new hires too. Any word on any offers being rescinded?

Dear Ms. McKenna,
I’m a former KPMG employee as of the end of February, as I was hit by a bus when I entered the partners office saying that “due to the market change for our practice (Advisory), your skills are no larger needed, so we are letting you go.”

KPMG has been hiring left and right and promising that there is all this work in the “pipeline” in the last year, but you never hear about the outcome. They let me and three other people that I know of so far go and we have eight new college hires starting between April and August. We also just had four college new hires start as of last August. I do have industry experience and have been with the firm over two years, so I know that I have more “skills” to offer than any of the new hires and future new hires.

They have never been very good about the hiring process as it seems every time we did win a new client we need to make a mad dash so hire new employees to manage the account rather than use the ones we have locally or at another office. We promoted both managers and senior managers recently and if you ask me, we are way too top heavy and should have started to make the slashes there and cut some of the new hires. The real thing that pissed me off with the whole thing is that I was just finishing up on a client and they had the audacity to ask me to wrap up sooner and transition my work over so I could leave early that Friday instead of coming in on Monday. .