Accenture to lay off 19000 people

Tech consultancy Accenture announced on March 23 it will be cutting around 19,000 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its workforce, spread over the next 18 months, as part of a cost-cutting effort. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Dublin-headquartered company said it expects to incur $1.5 billion in costs as a result of the downsizing, including $1.2 billion directly related to the layoffs. About half of the jobs lost are in administrative or support functions, not in areas that lead to billing of customers, the company said. Accenture's most recent annual report said it had 721,000 employees in 2022. The tech consulting and optimization company hired about 100,000 people in its 2022 fiscal year, which ended in August last year. The firm cited "significant economic and geopolitical uncertainty in many markets around the world, which has impacted and may continue to impact our business, particularly with regard to wage inflation and volatility in foreign currency exchange rates."