PwC slashes graduate jobs
The slogan on PricewaterhouseCoopers's UK graduate career website page - 'get ready your perfect career starts here' - may ring hollow for 78 graduates who have just had their jobs with the firm cancelled.
The firm has been forced to renege on its promise of employment to 78 graduates who were due to start work in September.
Destined for the management consultancy arm of PwC, the world’s largest firm, the graduates have been informed that they will not be taking up their new posts this autumn.
In return, the graduates will receive two months’ pay, rumoured to be around £7,000.
PwC said: ‘This decision has not been taken lightly and is a reflection of the current economic climate and our constant need as a responsible business to evaluate our skills mix against our client needs.’
Seventy-eight of the 180 graduate positions offered have been cut due to dwindling activity in the consultancy sector because of the economic slowdown.’We are trying to manage our intake of new staff appropriately, so when someone does join us, they will have meaningful work that will enable them to use and refine the skills we selected them for initially,’ said PwC.
Big Five firm Deloitte & Touche said it ‘had no plans at all to cut recruitment’ this year. Andersen, which faced an acrimonious split from its consultancy arm, said that it had ‘no plans to cut back at all’ and that it was employing around the same number of new recruits as last year, around 650 graduates overall.
An E&Y spokesman said there were no plans to cut back on graduate recruitment this year. Indeed vacancies remain in some divisions of the firms. E&Y sold off its consultancy arm to French firm Cap & Gemini last year.
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