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 UPS delivers customer wins with generative AI The multinational shipping company enlisted LLMs to automate customer message responses, reducing agent handle time and paving the way for genAI use across the enterprise. By Paula Rooney May 03, 2024 7 mins CIO 100 Generative AI Digital Transformation feature Scrum master certification: Top 13 certs for agile pros A Scrum master certification can prove you have the knowledge and competency to lead agile teams successfully. By Sarah K. White, Sharon Florentine May 03, 2024 16 mins Certifications Agile Development IT Skills brandpost Sponsored by Canon NZ Why your business needs a cloud-based print management solution If your business isn’t using a cloud-based print management solution, you’re missing out on a range of efficiency, environmental and security benefits. By Canon New Zealand May 02, 2024 5 mins Managed Cloud Services opinion The cyber pandemic: AI deepfakes and the future of security and identity verification Attackers have seen huge success using AI deepfakes for injection and presentation attacks – which means we’ll only see more of them. Advanced technology can help prevent (not just detect them). By Aaron Painter May 02, 2024 5 mins Artificial Intelligence Security 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