HARSH winds of recession are blowing through the accountancy
profession, which is a new experience for many. Yesterday KPMG Peat
Marwick, number two among the big six partnerships, made 30 redundancies
chiefly from its Glasgow office but with Dundee and Edinburgh also
involved. Most were young people just coming out of training contracts.
A spokesman blamed the effects of the prolonged recession and
regretted that they were unable to employ students about to qualify, but
promised the firm would do its best to help them get jobs.
Most of the big accountancy firms find themselves in a difficult
situation at present, though they are reluctant to admit to jobs being
cut. Figures this week have confirmed that five out of the top six have
taken a cut in income.
That included the current number one, Coopers & Lybrand, but Frank
Blin, managing partner in Glasgow, made it clear that the firm had no
redundancy problem.
He maintained that any loss of numbers had been ''insignificant''
though admitting that student intake had fallen significantly.
''It is tough out there, it has to be said,'' commented Mr Blin, and
that is a view most of the firms share.
Coopers has a significant insolvency practice, but encouragingly
enough even that work is slowing. In Scotland it peaked 15 months ago,
with cases now showing a significant fall although corprorate recovery
remains an active area of consultancy.
''We have no redundancies at this time; our work flow has improved,''
said Douglas Fairbairn, managing partner of Ernst & Young in Glasgow.
Having recently won the Greater Glasgow Health Board's substantial
internal audit work obviously has a bearing on that satisfactory
position.
As Mr Fairbairn pointed out, however, one of accountancy's problems
tends to be the pressure of audit work which is followed by a period
when it is more difficult to occupy staff. The increasing move towards a
December 31 financial year-end is aggravating that situation.
That numbers of CA students have dropped off sharply was confirmed by
Ian Marrian, director of eduction for the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of Scotland. He expects a further fall in intake next
September, but pointed out that the sister institute in England had
probably fared worst since the Scottish economy had not over-heated to
the same extent.
Mr Marrian said that prospective employers were being ''deluged with
applications'' and he agreed it was disappointing that those coming out
of training contracts were not getting jobs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article