PwC US to cut 1,800 jobs over restructuring, its first layoffs in 15 years

The action will impact “a relatively small proportion of our people, something that is never easy,” Paul Griggs, PwC’s US leader, said in the memo to the firm staff, the WSJ report said. PwC said the last formal layoffs in its US unit occurred in 2009.

PwC China crisis

PwC is also grappling with a crisis in China after it recently lost Country Garden Holdings as a client. This came amid the scrutiny over PwC’s auditing role in the China Evergrande Group, which has been accused of a $78 billion fraud. As a result, there have been cost-cutting measures, and layoffs at PwC China. 

On September 5, news agency Reuters reported that over 50 Chinese firms, including PwC’s largest mainland client Bank of China, have dropped the firm as their auditor or scrapped plans to rehire it. Country Garden said that their decision was driven by P’s failure to fulfill the timetable to publish its audited 2023 financial statements.

One of the big four accounting firms, PwC’s latest action comes when its rivals EY, KPMG, and Deloitte have collectively laid off thousands of US workers over the past two years. Similar to the IT sector, the layoffs are being partly attributed to the pandemic-era hiring frenzy.

First Published: Sep 12 2024 | 10:18 AM IST