How bad is the accountant shortage? Is it going to get worse? What are the big 4 firms and top accounting firms even doing to change their strategy? Are partners even talking about this and are they starting to realize how big the problem is because everyone is trying to get into tech and software engineering for the amazing WLB and high salary? I’m starting to wonder how many people are even majoring in accounting at business schools anymore.

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1 of our local major school we usually get about 20 - 30 applications each recruiting seasons. We got 3 this year. It's bad.

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Yikes

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Partners don’t care - they’ll be gone by the time it actually affects their bottomline. They are currently just outsourcing to India to close the gaps, gaps which are only going to widen into the future

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Thing is....Indians (and other popular regions) are getting good at what they do...and they do it for a ton less. Hate to say it, but I'm not convinced reduced accounting grads will provide much upside for the profession long term.

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Comments seem to conflate a lot of issues. The profession is attracting less talent for two reasons that are basically the same: 1. It’s underpaid compared to similar white collar jobs; 2. The WLB/lifestyle truly sucks compared to alternatives. I’m a geriatric millennial and I’ll tell you this is a big change from the post-Enron days when B4 was a job people were eager to have.

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TM1, no you really don’t. It was a lot of according theory and research that I have yet to ever use outside of academics. If anything the elective I took in property law has been 1000% more useful than the rest of the classes I took during my masters year.

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I'm in an advisory group that's seen as "desirable" and leadership is even pushing us to refer graduates for staff roles... Can't imagine what audit/tax is like

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Faas

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Another thing is this job is a real gride. Not sure if other jobs makes us suffers so much. This job is a real torture in a way

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Partners in smaller areas are noticing but highest ups stop them from doing what they need to do.

Solution is higher 3 x as much of a labor force out of college, even if utilization is lower (which keeps the staff happier btw) that level of staff could cover the constant leaving we have. Prob couldn’t happen in bigger areas, but there’s def enough fresh blood out of college in most LCoL areas to cover a major increase to workforce

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Agree. LCOL area people are still looking into getting in the big firms. The tiny local firms still able to get the good talent

They’re building up their workforce in low cost of labor countries. India, Argentina, ect. There’s a reason there’s an ever growing push to use outsourced resources.

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I can echo that comment. All of our competent managers left. The seniors aren’t competent enough to act as managers. So they brought in managers from India and sponsored their visa

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badddddddd

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The going concern has been pounding this drum for awhile. NPR recently did a podcast on it

I think 1st year audit and tax preparer work - some of it will be offshored to India while AI is figured out comes down in price . You know you still need people for both those scenarios Soo 🤷‍♀️

Honestly I’m not worried about it
I think it’s great honestly . I’m hoping this demand cpas stays and dip housing market happens

I wonder how will the partners continue justifying the high engagement fees with so much outsourcing. Been hearing BDO Rise is gearing up expansion across lot of different tax groups in full swing

My manager went to a campus career fair at his alma mater and he told me almost every student is asking about consulting opportunities and literally no one is asking about tax or audit. It was almost the opposite 5 years ago when he was a student there. So yeah, pretty bad.

What additional perks did u have in ur early days just curious?

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