FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of Accenture logo in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Bengaluru: IT firm Accenture has reduced its global workforce, including India, by 11,419 in the last three months (June to August 2025) alone amid the company's Artificial Intelligence (AI) push, data from the company's earnings report showed.
Accenture had 7,90,692 employees by the end of May 2025, and it has been reduced to 7,79,273 as of August 31, 2025.
The company also hinted at the possibility of letting go of more staff in the Q4FY25 earnings call. (The company follows a September- August financial year).
The company is rotating all its talent with over 550,000 people trained on fundamentals of Gen AI. It said one of every 2 GenAI projects leads to a data project.
Accenture Chair and CEO Julie Sweet said that they are investing in upskilling employees, which is the company's primary strategy. "We are exiting on a compressed timeline, people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need," she said during the company’s earnings call.
The IT firm is implementing a three-pronged talent strategy to rotate its workforce. It also announced a six-month business optimisation programme, initiated in Q4 for which it recorded a charge of $615 million and expected to record an additional approximately $250 million in Q1, for a total of about $865 million over the period.
"The business optimisation programme has two parts. One related to rapid talent rotation, which reflects severance associated with headcount reductions that we are making in a compressed timeline, and second, related to the divestiture of two acquisitions that are no longer aligned with our strategic priorities. These actions will result in cost-savings, which will be reinvested in our people and our business," said Angie Park, the company's CFO at the Q4 earnings call.
However, the CEO pointed out that in FY26, they expect to increase headcount overall across its three markets, including in the US and Europe, reflecting the demand that they see in business.
In FY25, Accenture tripled its revenue over FY24 from Gen AI and agentic AI to $2.7 billion. It nearly doubled its Gen AI bookings to $5.9 billion. On H1-B visas, the CEO said, "For us, this (H-1B visa) is really a non-issue because we only have about 5% of our people in the US on H1B visas and, therefore, really specialised experience and skills for our clients. So not something that is really a big impact on Accenture."