Grant Thornton wields redundancy axe
Grant Thorton staff face a bleak Christmas as the economic downturn begins to hit the profession
Grant Thornton is planning to cut 225 jobs, around 5% of its workforce, in
response to an expected slowdown in growth at the mid-tier accounting firm next
year.
Most of the staff affected, including a number of partners, were told their
jobs were at risk earlier this month, a Grant Thornton spokesman told
Accountancy Age.
‘As with most of our competitors, Big Four and beyond, we have been
conducting a review of our business across all business units,’ he said. ‘We
looked at the fee income for next year and tried to match that with the number
of staff.’
There are no further cuts planned at the moment he added, despite the
uncertain economic conditions which are set to carry on deep into 2009.
The planned job cuts are the biggest to be openly announced by a leading
firm. In May KPMG shed around 90 staff from its corporate finance and
transaction service teams in one of the first signs that the credit crunch was
hitting the profession.
The Grant Thornton spokesman added that it is trying to offer affected staff
secondments or the chance to take a career break.
However, staff who are judged not to be suitable for redeployment will face
redundancy.
