Deloitte jobs on the line before Christmas as cost-cutting continues

Big four consulting firm Deloitte has refused to say how many staff will lose their jobs as it reshuffles its headcount amid “challenging” market conditions and waning demand for some of its services.

Partners and staff are believed to be in the firing line in the latest spate of job cuts in professional services, which comes seven months after the firm revealed a mammoth overhaul of its global operations in a bid to slash costs.

All the big four firms — including KPMG, EY and PwC — have been shedding jobs in the past 12 months as demand for dealmaking and consulting services slows.

Deloitte’s cuts come as Australian revenues fell 2.4 per cent to $2.78 billion for the 2024 financial year.

“Against the backdrop of intense government and public scrutiny on the professional services sector, Deloitte’s results were impacted by weaker business demand across most sectors for large parts of its advisory and consulting offerings,” the company said at the time.

Speculation on the number of jobs to go in the latest round of cuts has varied widely.

Deloitte would not confirm numbers but did not refute the total could be well into the hundreds.

‘We regularly review our hiring priorities and workforce composition against market demand,” a spokeswoman said.

“The current market and economic conditions are challenging and we are seeing some meaningful changes in how our clients are buying some of our services.

“We have taken considered action where we have seen significant structural shifts in client need but we continue to hire into areas where demand remains strong.”

In March, Deloitte confirmed it had made “small number of redundancies” across the firm’s national operations. The company employs about 460,000 people internationally and had just over 13,000 staff in Australia in July.

EY slashed 148 jobs in consulting and financial services in April.