Technology services giant Accenture will continue to hire but meanwhile is cutting staff to streamline operations in the face of economic headwinds. Credit: ThinkStock IT services and consultancy firm Accenture said it would lay off 19,000 staffers, or 2.5% of its workforce, over the next 18 months to reduce costs amid uncertain macroeconomic conditions. “While we continue to hire, especially to support our strategic growth priorities, during the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we initiated actions to streamline our operations and transform our non-billable corporate functions to reduce costs,” the company said in an Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Thursday. “Over the next 18 months, these actions are expected to result in the departure of approximately 19,000 people (or 2.5% of our current workforce), and we expect over half of these departures will consist of people in our non-billable corporate functions,” the company added. The job cuts reflect stabilizing demand, following explosive post-pandemic growth, and prudent cost management, according to Ignacio Rasero, vice president for Moody’s Investors Service. In addition, the company has revised its fiscal year 2023 revenue growth. “Accenture expects revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 to be in the range of $16.1 billion to $16.7 billion, an increase of 3% to 7% in local currency, reflecting the company’s assumption of an approximately negative 3.5% foreign-exchange impact compared with the third quarter of fiscal 2022,” the company said in a statement. Despite the reduced forecast, Accenture’s diversified business and industry mix can help offset weakness in specific sectors, such as technology, and provide stability, Rasero said, adding that long-term demand prospects for Accenture’s services remain high as the company continues to benefit from digital transformation trends. Accenture’s decision to cut jobs comes just after Amazon decided to fire another 9,000 more workers from several business units, including AWS, at the beginning of the week. Earlier this month, Meta announced that it would fire 10,000 employees, over and above the 11,000 job cuts that it announced four months ago. Uncertain macroeconomic conditions have forced technology companies to announce massive layoffs since 2022 through 2023. Related content feature New US CIO appointments, June 2024 Congratulations to these 'movers and shakers' recently hired or promoted into a new chief information officer, senior IT, or board role. By Martha Heller Jun 12, 2024 9 mins CIO Careers IT Leadership feature Gen AI can be the answer to your data problems — but not all of them Generative AI can solve a litany of data challenges — filling gaps, extracting information from documents, and improving data quality — but experts say to exercise caution and use it in conjunction with traditional approaches. By Maria Korolov Jun 12, 2024 9 mins CIO Generative AI Data Quality interview How PEXA balances tech to benefit teams and the digital journey Cathy O'Sullivan, CIO editor-in-chief for APAC, recently sat with Eglantine Etiemble, group CTO at Property Exchange Australia, or PEXA, the online property exchange network. She was ranked third in the 2023 CIO50, Australia, and here she discus By CIO staff Jun 12, 2024 7 mins CIO CTO IT Skills feature UK Power Networks gets smart about cloud transformation With reliability essential, the energy distributor has taken a methodical approach to cloud adoption while enabling IoT, smart metering, and predictive analytics to keep its distribution networks humming in an increasingly complex energy market. By Paula Rooney Jun 12, 2024 7 mins Energy Industry Digital Transformation Cloud Computing PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe