EY Oceania to cut 100 roles in latest redundancy round

EY Oceania will cut more than 100 roles, in the latest round of layoffs to hit the services industry, amid a pullback in consulting and audit spending.

EY Oceania will slash roles as the latest firm to face a round of lay-offs, amid a pullback in consulting and audit spend. Picture: ChrisPavlich/The Australian

Audit and consulting firm EY Oceania is preparing to announce another round of lay-offs, with sources indicating more than 100 staff will face the chop early next week.

The Australian understands the firm has drawn up plans to slash headcount amid a pullback in revenue for the firm.

This would see EY join its market rivals Deloitte, KPMG, and PwC in axing staff.

EY’s cuts will come as the second round of lay-offs to hit the group after laying off around 232 roles across its audit and consulting business, which boasts more than 10,000 staff, in November.

EY’s US business also moved to lay off dozens of partners and staff across its business in December, after a move in April last year to sack 3000 staff across the American business.

Sources indicated EY’s consulting and financial advisory arms would be affected by the cuts, which were still being hammered out within the firm, with meetings still taking place.

However, sources also indicated the cuts were likely to be larger than the expected 100 roles within EY, noting the audit and consulting firm had previously used aggressive performance management of its staff in a bid to exit people from the business as part of plans to shrink headcount without resorting to redundancies.

An EY spokesman declined to comment on the cuts but noted the firm had “not communicated any workforce changes with our people and will update the media if this occurs”.

“In the event EY Oceania makes any workforce changes, our first and foremost priority will be to communicate with impacted people in our business, before updating stakeholders more broadly,” he said.

The move comes as the audit and consulting sector faces a spend pullback from the corporate and government sector.

PwC Australia moved to slash 366 staff and partners in March as the embattled firm faced a hardening market.

The firm was also forced to deal with the loss of its government consulting business, which PwC sold to private equity players Allegro Funds in a $1 deal.

EY has been somewhat insulated from the turmoil haunting the sector, but the audit and consulting firm was more recently embroiled in scandal after it was revealed a partner at the firm was facing legal action from the Australian Taxation Office over allegedly illegal tax schemes.

EY has also faced friction between parts of the business after the professional services firm mooted a split of its audit and consulting functions under “Project Everest” that would have seen the business split.

However, the deal was scuttled after powerful partners within EY failed to agree on a divvying up of the firm’s tax business as well as the funding of its retirement schemes.

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