'Completely Blindsided': Accounting Giant PwC Is Laying Off 1,500 U.S. Workers. Here's Why.

Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is cutting 1,500 U.S. jobs, The Financial Times reported on Monday. The layoffs impact 2% of PwC's 75,000-person U.S. workforce and mainly affect its audit and tax divisions.

PwC told The Financial Times that it decided to make the cuts because it experienced multiple years of low attrition or turnover. In other words, few employees chose to leave the firm voluntarily. Before deciding on layoffs, PwC said it examined its business over several months and moved hundreds of employees from unneeded roles to higher-growth positions.

Impacted employees were informed on Monday and Tuesday this week through Microsoft Teams meetings.

"This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step," PwC told The Financial Times.

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Among those laid off were employees who had just begun their careers at the firm. One person who began in September told The Financial Times they were "devastated" and that "everyone was completely blindsided by the layoffs."

PwC last laid off 1,800 employees in September in its first formal layoff round since 2009. The cuts in September primarily impacted the firm's products and technology operations division.

The Big Four accounting firms, which consist of PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte, have all recently announced layoffs. In response to federal demands for cost cuts and low attrition, Deloitte stated last month that it would be letting go of an unspecified number of U.S. employees in its consulting business. The firm employs 173,000 people in the U.S.

Meanwhile, EY cut about 100 employees from its consulting division in February, a 1% reduction in its 7,000-person U.S. workforce, while KPMG announced in November that it was laying off 330 people, or about 4% of its 9,000-person U.S. staff, due to low turnover.

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