Consulting: KPMG joins Big Four hiring spree
KPMG is hiring 8,000 new staff across Europe over the next three years, signalling a recovery in the corporate services industry. The recruitment drive will take KPMG’s workforce from 30,000 to 38,000 across Europe and from 11,000 to 14,000 in the UK.
KPMG also has ambitious hiring plans in France and Italy. The corporate services industry had been hit by the global downturn, with the ‚big four‘ accountancy firms – KPMG, Ernst & Young, PwC and Deloitte – criticised for their role in signing off financial statements fully-loaded with assets that plummeted in value during the crisis. All four are now recruiting staff aggressively.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, too, intends to add more than 55,000 new staff worldwide in the next five years. Demand is being driven by financial and manufacturing companies seeking advice on how to restructure their businesses and cut costs as well as adapt to the dozens of regulatory changes introduced as a result of the financial crisis.
According to the Management Consultancies Association, representing 70 per cent of the industry in Britain, revenues at three-quarters of its members grew in the first half of this year, up 6 per cent on average compared with the previous six months.
The hiring spree comes as a survey showed that KPMG ranked second in an index of the world’s most appealing employers. Google led the ranking, but KPMG, Ernst & Young, PwC and Deloitte ranked second to fifth as the most desired firms for job hunters. The survey by Universum, a Stockholm research company, was based on the opinions of nearly 130,000 students from top academic institutions in the world’s leading economies. (November 5th, 2010)
.
