Accenture plans to sack 25,000 employees globally, including in India

Thousands of roles at Accenture could be impacted as the global IT and professional services company is looking to reduce at least 5 percent of its global workforce. This may hit jobs of 25,000 employees of the tech giant across the world, according to The Australian Financial Review, citing an internal staff meeting by Accenture CEO Julie Sweet in mid-August.

The layoff operations are expected to be completed by August 14, the report said.

“As I’ve said before, we’ve identified some real areas of efficiencies and so that has obviously headcount implications to it, which may be what you’re calling layoffs,” Julie Sweet said.

An additional 5 percent of Australia's local staff are under threat after being flagged as needing new performance improvement plans, the report said.

Accenture employs 2 lakh people in India, and has a global staff count of 5 lakh. India, being its largest employment base, might be impacted due to the workforce reduction.

In an emailed statement to PTI on Wednesday, Accenture said it was not planning "extraordinary global workforce actions" at this time.

The statement was in response to a query about plans to layoff people, including in India.

"Every year, as part of our performance process, we have conversations with our people about how they are performing, areas for improvement, their potential to progress, and whether they are a long term fit for Accenture.

"This year, across all parts of our business and all career levels, we will identify approximately five per cent of our people as our lowest performers, and these individuals will transition out of Accenture. This is consistent with our actions each year," Accenture said in the statement.

In India, Accenture said it continues "to hire, and as part of our ongoing compensation programs, we also recently recognised a number of our people with bonuses and promotions".

The company will continue managing its business for the long term and critical to this is ensuring it has the right people with the right skills to best serve its clients, the statement said.

According to a July 1 report in The Guardian, the company was slashing up to 900 jobs in the UK to reduce costs in the face of lower demand for its services.

"In a normal year, we transition out about 5 per cent and we hire to replace them, because we are in a demand scenario," CEO Sweet said in the meeting. She also stated that the firm's growth had collapsed to 1.3 percent as the pandemic had taken hold.

"This year, in addition to the normal 5 per cent, we've identified more people who need improvement ... So we're making sure ... if we have to make other actions, we know where our performance is," she said in the meeting.

The cuts come less than a year after Accenture's Australian leadership was significantly cut after sales targets were missed, the report said.

Accenture has reduced travel budgets, cut contractors where needed and was said to be limiting hiring, the paper said in July, according to a CRN report.

Major technology companies had declared to layoff workers, such as NASDAQ-listed IT major Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS), on October 2019, decided to lay-off 7,000 employees in the mid to senior-level associates rank by 2020 as part of its cost-reduction programme.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that has significantly disrupted economic activities and businesses worldwide, including in India, many companies are resorting to job cuts as part of efforts to reduce costs.

(With inputs from PTI)