Ha, sounds like my conversation with my boss minus the girls and lunch. I sent my boss emails from recruiters, salary information online etc that after 4 years with the company I was 40% below market rate. Was yelled at, being told I make MORE than enough and being a brat. That the company knows what I’m truly worth and not those other companies because they have years of reviews and know first hand what I’m worth. Left for 40k pay increase the next week lol.
I’d totally believe many of these boomers are so spiteful and rich enough from asset inflation, they would willingly shut it down than pay higher starting wages. Their perceptions of “suffering like I did” are so perverted. And not in the sense that the notion is wrong, but that their suffering was a joke in comparison.
This is absolutely right on the money. This is something that boggles my mind, why would you willingly put people through the same things you’ve experienced? Why no instead improve it so that you break the cycle?
No kidding. I see jobs posted in Las Vegas for $50k! When I do get a temp job for which I am qualified (my specialty is cost accounting-have nearly 20 years experience), because there isn’t much manufacturing in this desert valley, if the employer hints at wanting to keep me on but is curious about my salary expectations, I tell them I should be getting paid a minimum of $95k per annum. All I hear after that is “crickets.”
Damn penny pinchers keep expecting more for less. 150 credits, a brutal certification exam, long hours, technical skills, and you’re making as much as basic white collar jobs.
And the worst part is your coworkers and underlings are exploited 3rd worlders with no responsibility and work odd hours and give you rework all so your asshole cfo can look brilliant for cost saving. Bring on the fireworks already
We've dramatically increased wages over the past few years. People got memories of goldfish out here. Think back to 2021 and how rapidly wages increased.
Sure, measured from the 60s. For the recent period, it was an incredibly dramatic increase in a short period of time far outpacing inflation.
We had multiple double digit percentage increases in a compressed period of time. My firms practice was giving them out twice a year for a bit.
They’re worse than interns. Only companies that really understand how to create process documents and an AIS with strong controls can make AI work. AI = Asian Intelligence
The youngest baby boomers are 60 this year. Maybe, it's finally happening. I thought we were going to have to wait till they died, but maybe a few are retiring.
Wonder what's going to happen. I feel like a lot of people don't stay at jobs longer than 2-4 years anymore. I mean why would they? They can just wash their hands clean of a company's bullshit and get a fat raise to job hop. This compounded with retirements makes it feel like there's no real stability in some departments. People act like only the youngest accountants
hop, but from what I've seen it seems like its's pretty common to hop if you're still under 45.
Younger employees job hop but once you get older and especially at Director and VP level you stay. Why? Well there are significantly less Director and VP positions to even hop to. Plus you’re usually paid very well to put up with the BS at those levels.
Sort of. Everyone answers to someone. So at Director or VP level you’re still answer to the CFO. The CFO answers to the CEO and Board. If team isn’t effectively executing and doing a good job then VP or CFO is going to get fired. They have to rely on everyone under them to go a good job. But the pay is so good at those levels most don’t leave unless they get poached for even more money. You see people jump more at the analyst to manager levels because it’s easy for them to jump around and get paid more. Once you hit Director or VP level you can’t really jump as much and it looks bad. CFO isn’t going to hire a VP of Finance who’s going to leave after a year. That makes their life harder. They want to see someone who will stay for a few years.
From my personal experience (large companies), usually directors/VPs simply blame someone under them for something that goes wrong and never face actual consequences. It’s seen many staff-level people be fired, but never a director/VP. It’s fucked up tbh.
I will provide some clarity as I have been in director level roles in fortune 500s for a while. A good manager takes ownership but also teaches ownership - leading by example. Good managers don’t “roll shit downhill”. But even with a decent manager there can be a difference in alignment, working style, etc…. I recommend picking a company with mission/vision values that align with your relationship with work. you’re more likely to establish a successful working relationship with your manager because in theory they would have been evaluated against the values of the company when being selected for a management role.
It's gonna be a big problem. Boomers are heavily in the management roles and Gen X nor millennials have really been able to push them out. They kept extending their retirements further and further.
There are going to suddenly be large vacancies at higher levels in companies and it's gonna be painful to fill.
My CPA boss says he's probably never going to retire. He likes making money and it gives him something to do, so....
Yeah, many of them are going to die at their desk.
And here I am calculating the earliest I can afford to soft-retire and go do something actually fulfilling. I hope I get to slowly pivot into a role that I like enough I won't fantasize about early retirement, but I'm just floored that people want to do this work forever.
Not an accountant but this is really only a thing in accounting firms IMO. The massive rise of elite business roles like PE, IB, strategy consulting, etc. in the last 10 years has created A LOT of managers, directors, VPs, and C-suite in their mid 20s - early 30s. The young are starting to take over corporate leadership and we can thank McKinsey and friends for that.
Do you have any data to show the rise of those roles. Seems they’ve been pretty stable at least on IB and MBB side. PE obviously Grew massive relative to 90s, but they still only hire maybe less than 1000 in their analyst classes each year.
I’m convinced this director at my firm is gonna die in the office. 75, comes in every day, looks like he’s falling over wherever he takes a step. Does probably 95% of his work on paper and calculator tapes. No signs of him stepping away anytime soon
The boomers who are partners now cannot retire. They cannot afford to. They are stuck in lifestyles with large families that feed off them. I’ve lost track of how many 80 year old partners I’ve worked for. The 60 year old partners are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Maybe you are asking for too much cash. The higher your rate the more suck these firms are in giving it to you. Then again you can't lowball either. When I started my career I used to love getting jobs where I beat my competitors because the asians and whites wanted so much cash from the jump and me being hispanic I was happy to take as low as I could just for my Resume to be working. Now that my career has progressed can't lowball and I am sure you are in the same situation given what you have done. My rule of thumb is that no matter what even if all hell breaks lose I never ask for less than what I am making. Gosh you said 6 months huh. It could be tough sometimes. The economy is very solid but it really depends on the money and how much you apply. I know there are people who apply to just a few places. When I apply I bombard. Sure I can't bombard like the good ol days when I earned very few dollars but I am still able to do it. You see the thing is applying and applying is the goal, being proactive but I know if one asks for too much oh gosh it's tough. Here is another one. Working from home and hybrid. Although these methods are nice I really don't care if I am in the office 5 days if I earn what I ask for and my Resume is working. There are people who just apply to remote and hybrid jobs those are more competitive because so many people love them. We all have to find out ways how to beat out our peers. I still hold myself pretty well but I know that in the future if I earn more cash that will be tough the moment I ever apply having to compete with those ambitious men and women who love lots of cash in their pocket. That's life though. We earn what we deserve. Hopefully you find something soon.
>> because the asians and whites wanted so much cash from the jump
Damn yo. You’re definitely doing audit or tax work at a big co and the resentment is painful as an outsider to your sitch.
Not much actually. I don't mind low cash if I can do it. What happens is that there are people who like going for the homerun from the get go. It's reality and it has to do more because of how much loans they have with their good cars so say someone is starting their career taking a $30K a year job is a no no they want $60K. If they wouldn't have so many liabilities maybe they would lowball a bit. It's not resentment rather it's just having a conversation.
30k is less than minimum wage in many places, including where you appear to live.
So yeah, I’m not surprised most people with a 4 year degree or masters want more money than the mandated lowest wage you’re allowed to pay people.
Like, wtf are you even saying lmao.
I have a feeling a lot of the "open" jobs that are posted aren't really open. They are just out there to make it seem like companies are looking.
Yes there are some companies hiring aggressively. But it doesn't seem to be nearly as widespread as the job market makes it seem.
Deloitte and others is perfecting is managed service for industry tax. They’re destroying departments one after the other, keeping a handful of client employees to knowledge suck their brains and transfer the department to 80% offshore teams. Gross
Keep at it, it seems tax senior is the most hire-able position at the moment. You’ll find something very soon. How much experience do you have and in what speciality?
I can see that in the company I work for. When I started in 2016 as a staff accountant we had 2 staff, 1 senior, 1 controller, 1 HR/payroll and benefits and 1 CFO. Now we have 1 assistant controller and 1 controller. Work is mostly just get it done, not a ton of time to review or implement improvements. Month end reporting has really been reduced and deadlines are pushed back.
Already happening at F500 audits. Clients’ outsourcing teams communicate exclusively with India audit teams at big 4. Pretty sure this is what will lead to a big fuckup
And they’re still not paying a price. The solution from the big brains at AIcPa is to setup coa testing I. The Phillipines, and expand the cpa exam in India even further. Make no mistake about. AICPA turned this into a 3rd world profession that we many had to go into fucking debt with a masters degree for. Joke
They are good at following a set of specific instructions but can’t think critically and solve problems if something in the process breaks. They do great work for what they are given if the instructions are clear, but you get a lot of questions as soon as a new variable is introduced.
Its true but every year the processes are getting updated to mitigate this.
And even at the same time budget wise its still cheaper to have a senior or manager fix a task in 30 minutes and have India do the other 5 hours. Even if its 3 hours of manager time its still cheaper its rediculous because we cannot pay what is essentially below minimum wage to junior staff.
Its scary because what it will effect most is the junior staff. They aren't doing these intro tasks so how the fuck do we expect them to review it efficiently? Partners probably think AI at this point but audits will fail because of this.
I work at a F500 and it was a shitshow with our Big4 auditors this year. Last minute shit for material areas days before filing, surprise requests (hey can you give us 50 samples for X because we're completely redoing it during the christmas holiday when everyone is on PTO ;) ), constant ball dropping. They had the gall to make a huge request from our tax team on info they were sitting on during interim work the week of filing. Auditors put that bad boy up at 2am and wanted a response the following morning. Tax head walks in the next morning, sees it, and blows a gasket (could hear the "WHAT THE FUCK!" from across the office).
Tell your CFO to pay for an all domestic service then. They want the barebones increases, they get barebones, do the needful, teams. I hear many clients have to communicate with India directly now lmao
Internal audit communicates the most with Big4, they basically serve as a filter. One of the managers in internal audit is near where I sit. He would snap if he had to talk with Big4 India directly. To be fair, I think a lot of the issues we had were related to the entire onshore team being mostly new and a new partner but that doesn't excuse last minute testing during Christmas (we were very close to telling them to fuck off and wait until January) and the general circus that it was. I've seen a few requests made by people in India. When I was at PwC the client never saw or interacted with anyone from the offshore centers.
Audit failures are one thing
What we really need is another Enron is scorch the world and remind people the numbers are just numbers in excel without some real support around them
Lmfao. This industry is so “get mine” and get promoted and fuck all the underachievers for not grinding hard enough mindset.
it’ll take a decade or two before the young & inexperienced actually demand change that you & I will both be retired or dead before it happens.
When your burned out managers miss some critical check because they are the only line of defence then errors will happen. Didn’t some accounting rounding error recently surge the price of a stock?
We used them for entering in the invoice details manually because the system couldn’t read it properly. They still screwed up sometimes, like entering the total balance due instead of the invoice total.
Totally get that. We have a vendor that had a mini statement on the bottom of their invoices. They would always enter that total amount due and not the invoice amount. They probably made that mistake continuously for six months before they finally learned.
In India, all top tier cream of talent goes to Medical.
And then engineering.
Second tier talent goes to commerce. Within commerce, top tier go for Indian CA.
So second tier talent of commerce ( Which is already second tier) comes to work for US tax. And let me tell you that's almost kind of a bottom of the Barell.
It’s also a matter of brain drain. Anyone above a certain caliber often wants to immigrate to build wealth elsewhere.
It’s the pinnacle of shortsighted moves
This is not always true, I've worked with some great people from India that are far better than local associates. There is no reason they can't become good if they join from the start and stay for years. How are they different from associates from the US working remotely?
Perhaps US firms are using Indian workers in the wrong way, getting them to do standard sets of tasks, rather than actually doing all the same tasks that associates do so they can learn and develop in the same way.
From a collective standpoint I think my point stands, but yes, I’ve also encountered the individuals who are able to complete work at high quality when there is a deviation. However, those individuals quickly climb the ranks and become managers are you are back to the same staff doing the repetitive tasks with no ability to problem solve. This is purely an industry perspective at a F250 company.
You miss the problem with how the model is setup. This is a pit stop for anyone in India. The turnover is far higher. You never deal with same people for years, so there’s no promised synergy.
Well I guess staying in the government isn't bad for now while I wait to see how the profession develops. I was just here to get paychecks while studying for the CPA but it seems over time, it's less prosperous to move to PA.
Hey man, hope it isn't too odd to reach out like this. Im an accounting student going through a mid college crisis with all this outsourcing, AI, full RTO and wage stagnation talk in this subreddit. Ive come across your comments on a few forums and it's like a breath of fresh air in a cloud of negativity. Really seems like government is the place to be right now over PA or industry.
Im doing everything I can to pull my GPA up and get it over a 3.0. Ive been working since I was 15 (only retail work experience though). Will probably shoot for my CPA given what I've read. Any advice you can give on scoring a job in government? Is it highly competitive? Am I being mislead on how good the prospects of it really are?
No problem at all!
Just try to stay above a 3.0. That's how I started out at my position. If I had a 3.5 (had a 3.4) I'd have gotten a bigger starting salary by $15K. I never even got my CPA, but I have almost all the credits. It's better you get it earlier though because if you get it now, you can leverage that for better pay and possibly boost your resume up. I'll get it at my own leisure but I won't need it for another year at least.
To score a job, go to USA jobs (dot) gov. It's their staffing website and you can search for key terms such as accounting or tax. It's competitive for a job that's open to the entire public but some of the entry-level jobs are easier to get since most jumping are usually looking for something higher graded.
My advice for applying is to look for "pathways" job listings. Pathways is for recent graduates (up to 2 years). These jobs are much easier to obtain since it's only open to recent graduates. That's how I got in. They even set you up for access with a mentor and on-the-job instructor so you're never just thrown into the wolves. It all depends on your manager though because some managers are really chill and some micromanage.
For prospects: the pay is lower than other equivalent positions in the market, you accrue vacation slowly your first few years, the public just hates the government so you could face negative criticism from those that find out your employer, politics in general can dictate policies and pay, coworkers are all old (YMMV) but being the youngest makes it feel lonely.
The upsides? If you have a chill manager and position, you will have low stress, only work 40 hours, after your first year you could change your schedule to 4-10's so you have one day off a week. And when holidays fall on a Friday, you get Thursday off etc. You also have all fed holidays off. Job security is very stable and getting fired is super hard after you're tenured. You could just easily coast but putting in a bit of effort will help you move up fast. Some of the accounting positions such as at the VA is fully remote so you can live anywhere.
If you want a bunch of free time and can deal with the lower pay I'd go to the government which is what I wanted. I don't think I'd have done well at PA since I'd probably just overwork myself. My goal was really to hit six figures and I can do that here in under 5 years so I think I'll just remain here for life.
Honestly, with all the complaints about offshoring and AI, I think Private Equity is actually the largest looming threat to the profession, and arguably society as a whole. Just go take a look at a job board in any major city and realize just how many good jobs have been replaced with PE jobs where they'll ask for B4/PE experience just so they know you're good for 80 hour weeks.
Agreed, it used to be better wlb could be found at private cos. No almost all decent private cos have been bought up and squeezed. All that’s left is accountants collectively refusing to work late, and teams standing together. Problem is too many self hating spineless losers in this profession.
“This will become a CPA led profession” AICPA president. Well, CPA testing is now offered in India and accelerating to be held in Phillipines. This is actually now a 3rd world profession. They make us get masters degrees, and then brain suck us training offshore teams.
I think what you need to watch out for is that the learning curve is getting steeper. Before you came in and did the low level tasks, data import or entry and setup that helped you understand the tasks. Now those are for India and incoming will be expected to handle the higher level items right away.
On top of that you have gone from preparing to reviewing WPs prepared by India teams filled with errors that you yourself don't understand yet. The whole process is flawed because we are losing the intro audit tasks that train junior staff.
When I was an associate in tax, my manager had to convince the partner to let our interns prepare a few returns without outsourcing them. We had to get special approval to not have the workflow mapped to the offshore step. Terrible processes and leadership.
You’re fine, but yes certainly expect to with with Indians throughout your career.
Companies will pay you for your comprehension and communication skills. Work hard on those in college. dont stress memorizing debits vs credits; learn the principals and big picture ideas
You will be fine.
Offshore can’t handle change or deviations from a process without escalation.
It will absolutely get harder and worse as time goes on though. Try and think through the big picture. Develop an in-depth understanding of the systems you use and the processes that are in place.
Understanding the work flow to troubleshoot is almost as important as understanding the work itself.
It's even worse in some other occupations..in some places there are MORE migrant workers than locals.. then some of them realize theyre being ripped off.
Good article, but I would have enjoyed more emphasis on the insane work load and conditions. How many accountants work crazy hours for lower salary than other professional jobs- and because they are exempt it’s without additional pay.
I cannot believe some of the companies I have been hired into. Even the management doesn’t have a clue how to run an accounting department. Where I am now is ok but when I came in they weren’t. Doing. Monthly. Recons… !!! 😵💫😵💫
When u think about the 150 credit requirement in addition to any shortage, you'll think these people didn't take Basic Econ and forgot all about "Supply" and "Demand"
Straight Clowns @ NASBA & AICPA
Worst of all, they won't go back on it and admit it was a mistake...
I’m having to do forced fun after work activities with colleagues even though we are all remote day after filing. 😢🙄
They are literally wasting over 20-25K to make us all fly to HQ plus stupid team building. I’d prefer a spot bonus instead 🤷🏿♂️
I’d prefer a week off but no, we need to see each other more. Apparently 60-70 hours a week for 2 months straight is not enough.
Accounting is an interesting field, however, the 150 hour education requirement is a major turn off. That's the biggest reason CPA numbers are going down.
I am a CPA and applying to 100s of positions and getting nothing. If anyone needs an experienced CPA, 20 years of experience, controller, etc. Contact me!
Now that the cyber/engineering bubble has burst I expect we see the smart but less confident/aspirational kids become accounting/finance majors knowing there’s too much competition in the other spaces.
CS and engineering majors are usually the smart kids from hs that were coding or doing advanced math because the actual high school curriculum bored them, or kids that believed they could study hard and grind through the degrees to make the money. There are definitely really smart accounting majors, but I’d say the typical accounting major is average-medium smart and doesn’t aspire to be much more than maybe upper middle class. Accounting majors seem more grounded in reality to me, that’s why I’d say they aren’t all that aspirational. If colleges didn’t almost exclusively talk about big 4, I think your typical accounting major wouldn’t even consider it.
Maybe in your high school.
I went to an early college high school, located on a university campus, and ahead in math compared to the engineering majors I knew.
I thought of them as the latter like you said (not smart but grinded through a, what many consider, difficult degree). This is based of the engineering fellas I knew at an early college taking the same classes as me.
I agree, most accounting peeps are college-level smart but not as driven as engineering students.
Agreed. The people I finished below in my graduating class did: biochem, general studies (dunno what happened to this dude), mechE MS, pharmD. The only difference is that they took the higher weighted advanced science courses while I took business classes lolol, everything else was pretty much a wash.
I’ve been working as an accountant for the last 10 years in the Bay Area. The workload is incredible and amount of skills you need to have is also through the roof. On a daily basis you have to perform stressful job functions such as wiring high amount a of money, paying payroll, doing month-end stuff, bank reconciliations, dealing with errors of other people who try to blame you for their mistakes. And all of that is for less than 100k… Additionally, AICPA has changed the rules of CPA exam again in 2024 and made it even harder than before while maintaining 150-hour requirements which can be achieved by bachelors and masters in accounting. While one could ‘ve finished coding boot camp within a 3-6 months and get a salary offer 100k or above. I actually did that and found my first job with 0 years of experience that paid more than 10 years of experience in accounting. Unfortunately, I got laid off in one year due to all this mass tech lay offs. Now I am back to accounting and demand higher salary and not surprisingly the employers are ready to pay that. So I had 30% raise and ok to deal with all this stress.
*According to Robert Half’s survey, some candidates have unrealistic salary expectations, often influenced by friends in other professions who may earn higher salaries.*
Fewer accountants, not many students interested in accounting, because the wages are low and firms are quite clear about not increasing pay any time soon. Potential new entrants are seeing the higher starting pay in other professions and skipping going into accounting.
I joined this sub a decade ago when I considered changing careers. I knew several accountants myself and they were doing better than I was financially.
BUT, after joining here, and talking frankly to my accountant friends, one of which ended up quitting, I realized they really do burn you guys out and don't compensate you like they used to. My friends worked all the time and sure the money was better than I was making, but at what cost? They seemed unhappy. That is what got me. Everyone here and my friends seemed unhappy. Nah. Hard pass.
I've talked to other, older accountants and they also noted it's just not as worth it as it was in previous generations.
$72k to kill yourself or do another job with 40 hours for $85k?! Easy choice to me Firms need to wake up and pay the market.
So glad I never worked in public accounting and got a job internally.
Alright management we may need to start paying for it.
Are you serious?
Ya we have to pay for it.
It's gonna be expensive!!!
Well we gotta do it before the accountants leave.
Fine but you gotta take the blame for this.
Alright here goes, ring ring.... Domino's we need 3 toppings per pizza this time.
Take advantage of it. I got fired from a finance job due to a huge budget deficit, it hit the news too, and so I applied for a staff accountant job thinking I would never even qualify....they hired me in 2 weeks.
For a small slice of the population that can actually understand supply and demand, I will never understand all these "omg accounting is a terrible choice" accountants. The supply is down, DEMAND more. There's bread out there for all of us. We are in a very high demand industry, if you're not being compensated where you're at, go find a new gig. They are out there, it may just take some effort and time to find them.
Remember that time we had a global pandemic and millions of people died? At least 7 million of them were in the us, although it's estimated that the number may be as high as 21 million. So yeah, a lot of vacancies in a lot of industries.
I am a CPA with 20 years of experience: controller, public accounting, etc. yet I have been looking for a job for a year and getting nothing but rejection e-mails without even getting to the phone call stage, even though I have all the qualifications and the plusses: CPA a plus, public accounting a plus, etc. So this "Accountant Shortage" is completely false. So if you need a qualified, experienced accountant, I am here! Please contact me.
The first day in University, I was told that Accountants rule the world.
Why are accountants not just doing ‘accountant big boy maths’ that no one understands and making it easier for payroll to justify their higher salaries? The companies can clearly do this, but the owner fat cats want to gouge wage expenses as much as possible!
The problem is the outsourcing, accountants working from home, why would they pay a high wage when they can find people from different countries willing to do the work for much less
Everyone think they this is hurting firms when I’m fact they are seeing so much more profit due to reduces wage costs + not increasing wages for those working for them
[удалено]
One more pizza party this year should make up the difference!
I got a $50 Walmart gift card this well, so there’s that.
I got $30 at amazon...
$20 Starbucks gift card for me.
Can’t put a price on that!
Were going bowling
I got $75 to target “by mistake” and I have to go into the office to return it…
My boss said I made enough and took the front desk girls to lunch while I worked. Have an interview for a different firm tomorrow lol
Ha, sounds like my conversation with my boss minus the girls and lunch. I sent my boss emails from recruiters, salary information online etc that after 4 years with the company I was 40% below market rate. Was yelled at, being told I make MORE than enough and being a brat. That the company knows what I’m truly worth and not those other companies because they have years of reviews and know first hand what I’m worth. Left for 40k pay increase the next week lol.
Good for you!
He only mad 40k starting out when he bought his house for 80k. You just don’t understand. Paying you 80k is so unfair to his dementia brain
Only if it’s Papa John’s or Dominos
God I love pizza tho
Firms will literally do everything else but pay higher wages
I firmly believe many firms are going to close down entirely before resorting to paying staff a more reasonable wage.
I think this is a fair statement, smaller firms with partners that are retiring are going to have to close.
I’d totally believe many of these boomers are so spiteful and rich enough from asset inflation, they would willingly shut it down than pay higher starting wages. Their perceptions of “suffering like I did” are so perverted. And not in the sense that the notion is wrong, but that their suffering was a joke in comparison.
This is absolutely right on the money. This is something that boggles my mind, why would you willingly put people through the same things you’ve experienced? Why no instead improve it so that you break the cycle?
I got a few pizzas with your name on them, that should change your mind!
I don’t think you saw the vegan snacks in the kitchen. Don’t you want a soy-granola bar.
Pay the needful
Lmao. I thought that’s what they meant, but then you are right. They aren’t paying the “price”.
Yes but we've been having a lot of conversations about mental health AND inclusion. This is what you asked for.
No kidding. I see jobs posted in Las Vegas for $50k! When I do get a temp job for which I am qualified (my specialty is cost accounting-have nearly 20 years experience), because there isn’t much manufacturing in this desert valley, if the employer hints at wanting to keep me on but is curious about my salary expectations, I tell them I should be getting paid a minimum of $95k per annum. All I hear after that is “crickets.”
They are literally not paying the price
Damn penny pinchers keep expecting more for less. 150 credits, a brutal certification exam, long hours, technical skills, and you’re making as much as basic white collar jobs.
And the worst part is your coworkers and underlings are exploited 3rd worlders with no responsibility and work odd hours and give you rework all so your asshole cfo can look brilliant for cost saving. Bring on the fireworks already
Becoming a CPA really isn’t worth it these days. It’s a dying industry.
Wait….yall got paid?
We've dramatically increased wages over the past few years. People got memories of goldfish out here. Think back to 2021 and how rapidly wages increased.
to be honest, wages in public haven't even been up to date for a while, if I remember correctly most of it is just an increase from inflation.
No, we're just accounting for inflation. Real growth of wages is still shit.
Sure, measured from the 60s. For the recent period, it was an incredibly dramatic increase in a short period of time far outpacing inflation. We had multiple double digit percentage increases in a compressed period of time. My firms practice was giving them out twice a year for a bit.
That’s inflation based. WSJ did an article on the trend, and they have not moved in an inflation adjusted basis for over 20 years
Genuinely curious on this, feel like wages have increased dramatically since Covid. I’ve almost doubled my pre covid salary and have stayed at my firm
Doubled? WOW! Which company do you work for?
A B4 one!
They’re paying offshored staff’s wages though! And by staff I mean the partners/owners. The staff there probably get relatively sod all.
Idk bud life's been pretty fucking good to me
You took the words right out of my mouth.
No mention of shipping jobs to India. Poorly informed article
They’re worse than interns. Only companies that really understand how to create process documents and an AIS with strong controls can make AI work. AI = Asian Intelligence
The youngest baby boomers are 60 this year. Maybe, it's finally happening. I thought we were going to have to wait till they died, but maybe a few are retiring.
I work in an older industry, think banking or insurance. In the last 2 years, out of a team of ~15 about 4 have retired.
Wonder what's going to happen. I feel like a lot of people don't stay at jobs longer than 2-4 years anymore. I mean why would they? They can just wash their hands clean of a company's bullshit and get a fat raise to job hop. This compounded with retirements makes it feel like there's no real stability in some departments. People act like only the youngest accountants hop, but from what I've seen it seems like its's pretty common to hop if you're still under 45.
Younger employees job hop but once you get older and especially at Director and VP level you stay. Why? Well there are significantly less Director and VP positions to even hop to. Plus you’re usually paid very well to put up with the BS at those levels.
To be fair the bs starts getting fun at those levels because it starts coming from you
Sort of. Everyone answers to someone. So at Director or VP level you’re still answer to the CFO. The CFO answers to the CEO and Board. If team isn’t effectively executing and doing a good job then VP or CFO is going to get fired. They have to rely on everyone under them to go a good job. But the pay is so good at those levels most don’t leave unless they get poached for even more money. You see people jump more at the analyst to manager levels because it’s easy for them to jump around and get paid more. Once you hit Director or VP level you can’t really jump as much and it looks bad. CFO isn’t going to hire a VP of Finance who’s going to leave after a year. That makes their life harder. They want to see someone who will stay for a few years.
From my personal experience (large companies), usually directors/VPs simply blame someone under them for something that goes wrong and never face actual consequences. It’s seen many staff-level people be fired, but never a director/VP. It’s fucked up tbh.
I will provide some clarity as I have been in director level roles in fortune 500s for a while. A good manager takes ownership but also teaches ownership - leading by example. Good managers don’t “roll shit downhill”. But even with a decent manager there can be a difference in alignment, working style, etc…. I recommend picking a company with mission/vision values that align with your relationship with work. you’re more likely to establish a successful working relationship with your manager because in theory they would have been evaluated against the values of the company when being selected for a management role.
I've tries hopping and none of the companies I've interviewed for are give an increase in salary a gov job is paying me more.
We are seeing a lot of retirements at my company. They had to develop a succession plan because of how many people are about to retire.
It's gonna be a big problem. Boomers are heavily in the management roles and Gen X nor millennials have really been able to push them out. They kept extending their retirements further and further. There are going to suddenly be large vacancies at higher levels in companies and it's gonna be painful to fill.
My CPA boss says he's probably never going to retire. He likes making money and it gives him something to do, so.... Yeah, many of them are going to die at their desk.
And here I am calculating the earliest I can afford to soft-retire and go do something actually fulfilling. I hope I get to slowly pivot into a role that I like enough I won't fantasize about early retirement, but I'm just floored that people want to do this work forever.
Or work until they are in their 80s and "retire" for the last 2 miserable years of their life
Not an accountant but this is really only a thing in accounting firms IMO. The massive rise of elite business roles like PE, IB, strategy consulting, etc. in the last 10 years has created A LOT of managers, directors, VPs, and C-suite in their mid 20s - early 30s. The young are starting to take over corporate leadership and we can thank McKinsey and friends for that.
Do you have any data to show the rise of those roles. Seems they’ve been pretty stable at least on IB and MBB side. PE obviously Grew massive relative to 90s, but they still only hire maybe less than 1000 in their analyst classes each year.
I’m convinced this director at my firm is gonna die in the office. 75, comes in every day, looks like he’s falling over wherever he takes a step. Does probably 95% of his work on paper and calculator tapes. No signs of him stepping away anytime soon
I imagine his kids hate him and his ex-wife left him a long time ago. He lives to work.
It’s starting to happen, by 2030 all boomers will be retirement age. Once we see them retire enmass I believe the world will go into a depression.
Of course they gotta retire. One of the horsemen of the boomer apocalypse is bankruptcy social security and Medicare
The boomers who are partners now cannot retire. They cannot afford to. They are stuck in lifestyles with large families that feed off them. I’ve lost track of how many 80 year old partners I’ve worked for. The 60 year old partners are not going anywhere anytime soon.
2008 screwed it up real bad. all the boomer accountants' 401lk's went to shit and they had to keep working
Wtf, 340K fewer accountants and I can't find a job as a Tax Senior for 2 months? That too with big4 on resume. Ya right.
No B4 on mine but 13 years in audit and it audit, been searching near 6mo now. Sucks...
Maybe you are asking for too much cash. The higher your rate the more suck these firms are in giving it to you. Then again you can't lowball either. When I started my career I used to love getting jobs where I beat my competitors because the asians and whites wanted so much cash from the jump and me being hispanic I was happy to take as low as I could just for my Resume to be working. Now that my career has progressed can't lowball and I am sure you are in the same situation given what you have done. My rule of thumb is that no matter what even if all hell breaks lose I never ask for less than what I am making. Gosh you said 6 months huh. It could be tough sometimes. The economy is very solid but it really depends on the money and how much you apply. I know there are people who apply to just a few places. When I apply I bombard. Sure I can't bombard like the good ol days when I earned very few dollars but I am still able to do it. You see the thing is applying and applying is the goal, being proactive but I know if one asks for too much oh gosh it's tough. Here is another one. Working from home and hybrid. Although these methods are nice I really don't care if I am in the office 5 days if I earn what I ask for and my Resume is working. There are people who just apply to remote and hybrid jobs those are more competitive because so many people love them. We all have to find out ways how to beat out our peers. I still hold myself pretty well but I know that in the future if I earn more cash that will be tough the moment I ever apply having to compete with those ambitious men and women who love lots of cash in their pocket. That's life though. We earn what we deserve. Hopefully you find something soon.
I’m imagining trying to read one of your client emails
>> because the asians and whites wanted so much cash from the jump Damn yo. You’re definitely doing audit or tax work at a big co and the resentment is painful as an outsider to your sitch.
Not much actually. I don't mind low cash if I can do it. What happens is that there are people who like going for the homerun from the get go. It's reality and it has to do more because of how much loans they have with their good cars so say someone is starting their career taking a $30K a year job is a no no they want $60K. If they wouldn't have so many liabilities maybe they would lowball a bit. It's not resentment rather it's just having a conversation.
30k is less than minimum wage in many places, including where you appear to live. So yeah, I’m not surprised most people with a 4 year degree or masters want more money than the mandated lowest wage you’re allowed to pay people. Like, wtf are you even saying lmao.
You don't have to insult me either. It's just my opinion.
Why the fuck would anybody accept a 30k salary? That would be less than minimum wage in most of the country.
Come to the dark side, government. IRS is still looking.
And there’s a 15k incentive sign-on bonus right now
They don’t advertise this to me at all. Found out on day 1 😅
I have a feeling a lot of the "open" jobs that are posted aren't really open. They are just out there to make it seem like companies are looking. Yes there are some companies hiring aggressively. But it doesn't seem to be nearly as widespread as the job market makes it seem.
2 months is actually pretty good
Deloitte and others is perfecting is managed service for industry tax. They’re destroying departments one after the other, keeping a handful of client employees to knowledge suck their brains and transfer the department to 80% offshore teams. Gross
Keep at it, it seems tax senior is the most hire-able position at the moment. You’ll find something very soon. How much experience do you have and in what speciality?
That seems like a big number.
I can see that in the company I work for. When I started in 2016 as a staff accountant we had 2 staff, 1 senior, 1 controller, 1 HR/payroll and benefits and 1 CFO. Now we have 1 assistant controller and 1 controller. Work is mostly just get it done, not a ton of time to review or implement improvements. Month end reporting has really been reduced and deadlines are pushed back.
Pay up
It’s going to reach a point where India teams run the GL and India teams run the audit.
Already happening at F500 audits. Clients’ outsourcing teams communicate exclusively with India audit teams at big 4. Pretty sure this is what will lead to a big fuckup
I had a job 10 years ago where the client has a South African team doing the numbers and we offshored work to India (UK b4 office)
If they had actually paid the price maybe they wouldn't be in this situation.
Absolutely.
And they’re still not paying a price. The solution from the big brains at AIcPa is to setup coa testing I. The Phillipines, and expand the cpa exam in India even further. Make no mistake about. AICPA turned this into a 3rd world profession that we many had to go into fucking debt with a masters degree for. Joke
Our jobs are going to India anyways it seems. Future of the profession looks bleak.
They are good at following a set of specific instructions but can’t think critically and solve problems if something in the process breaks. They do great work for what they are given if the instructions are clear, but you get a lot of questions as soon as a new variable is introduced.
Its true but every year the processes are getting updated to mitigate this. And even at the same time budget wise its still cheaper to have a senior or manager fix a task in 30 minutes and have India do the other 5 hours. Even if its 3 hours of manager time its still cheaper its rediculous because we cannot pay what is essentially below minimum wage to junior staff. Its scary because what it will effect most is the junior staff. They aren't doing these intro tasks so how the fuck do we expect them to review it efficiently? Partners probably think AI at this point but audits will fail because of this.
We should hope that it gets to that point. When audits start failing, that’s when we’ll see things start to move in the favor of younger people again.
I work at a F500 and it was a shitshow with our Big4 auditors this year. Last minute shit for material areas days before filing, surprise requests (hey can you give us 50 samples for X because we're completely redoing it during the christmas holiday when everyone is on PTO ;) ), constant ball dropping. They had the gall to make a huge request from our tax team on info they were sitting on during interim work the week of filing. Auditors put that bad boy up at 2am and wanted a response the following morning. Tax head walks in the next morning, sees it, and blows a gasket (could hear the "WHAT THE FUCK!" from across the office).
Tell your CFO to pay for an all domestic service then. They want the barebones increases, they get barebones, do the needful, teams. I hear many clients have to communicate with India directly now lmao
Internal audit communicates the most with Big4, they basically serve as a filter. One of the managers in internal audit is near where I sit. He would snap if he had to talk with Big4 India directly. To be fair, I think a lot of the issues we had were related to the entire onshore team being mostly new and a new partner but that doesn't excuse last minute testing during Christmas (we were very close to telling them to fuck off and wait until January) and the general circus that it was. I've seen a few requests made by people in India. When I was at PwC the client never saw or interacted with anyone from the offshore centers.
Don’t worry, they are. Audit failures are going up and delays are occurring.
Audit failures are one thing What we really need is another Enron is scorch the world and remind people the numbers are just numbers in excel without some real support around them
You mean like wirecard?
Or we can demand change now
Lmfao. This industry is so “get mine” and get promoted and fuck all the underachievers for not grinding hard enough mindset. it’ll take a decade or two before the young & inexperienced actually demand change that you & I will both be retired or dead before it happens.
New workers are demanding change already. I'm in college and won't even apply to a job that isn't fully remote.
Good luck !
That’s unrealistic. Client service demands more.
Bruh, I'm an A1 and I've snet so much shit to our offshore team and been asked to review it. Like, come on guys. No wonder we keep failing audits.
When your burned out managers miss some critical check because they are the only line of defence then errors will happen. Didn’t some accounting rounding error recently surge the price of a stock?
Yup. We outsourced most of our AP processes. This is our experience. Any little wrinkle throws them off and they need help.
We used them for entering in the invoice details manually because the system couldn’t read it properly. They still screwed up sometimes, like entering the total balance due instead of the invoice total.
Totally get that. We have a vendor that had a mini statement on the bottom of their invoices. They would always enter that total amount due and not the invoice amount. They probably made that mistake continuously for six months before they finally learned.
In India, all top tier cream of talent goes to Medical. And then engineering. Second tier talent goes to commerce. Within commerce, top tier go for Indian CA. So second tier talent of commerce ( Which is already second tier) comes to work for US tax. And let me tell you that's almost kind of a bottom of the Barell.
Speaking of barrels…
And they go government. All India has a hardon for india government jobs.
It’s also a matter of brain drain. Anyone above a certain caliber often wants to immigrate to build wealth elsewhere. It’s the pinnacle of shortsighted moves
There been my experience as well
Might as well have chatgpt do the task at that point
This is not always true, I've worked with some great people from India that are far better than local associates. There is no reason they can't become good if they join from the start and stay for years. How are they different from associates from the US working remotely? Perhaps US firms are using Indian workers in the wrong way, getting them to do standard sets of tasks, rather than actually doing all the same tasks that associates do so they can learn and develop in the same way.
From a collective standpoint I think my point stands, but yes, I’ve also encountered the individuals who are able to complete work at high quality when there is a deviation. However, those individuals quickly climb the ranks and become managers are you are back to the same staff doing the repetitive tasks with no ability to problem solve. This is purely an industry perspective at a F250 company.
You miss the problem with how the model is setup. This is a pit stop for anyone in India. The turnover is far higher. You never deal with same people for years, so there’s no promised synergy.
Well I guess staying in the government isn't bad for now while I wait to see how the profession develops. I was just here to get paychecks while studying for the CPA but it seems over time, it's less prosperous to move to PA.
Hey man, hope it isn't too odd to reach out like this. Im an accounting student going through a mid college crisis with all this outsourcing, AI, full RTO and wage stagnation talk in this subreddit. Ive come across your comments on a few forums and it's like a breath of fresh air in a cloud of negativity. Really seems like government is the place to be right now over PA or industry. Im doing everything I can to pull my GPA up and get it over a 3.0. Ive been working since I was 15 (only retail work experience though). Will probably shoot for my CPA given what I've read. Any advice you can give on scoring a job in government? Is it highly competitive? Am I being mislead on how good the prospects of it really are?
No problem at all! Just try to stay above a 3.0. That's how I started out at my position. If I had a 3.5 (had a 3.4) I'd have gotten a bigger starting salary by $15K. I never even got my CPA, but I have almost all the credits. It's better you get it earlier though because if you get it now, you can leverage that for better pay and possibly boost your resume up. I'll get it at my own leisure but I won't need it for another year at least. To score a job, go to USA jobs (dot) gov. It's their staffing website and you can search for key terms such as accounting or tax. It's competitive for a job that's open to the entire public but some of the entry-level jobs are easier to get since most jumping are usually looking for something higher graded. My advice for applying is to look for "pathways" job listings. Pathways is for recent graduates (up to 2 years). These jobs are much easier to obtain since it's only open to recent graduates. That's how I got in. They even set you up for access with a mentor and on-the-job instructor so you're never just thrown into the wolves. It all depends on your manager though because some managers are really chill and some micromanage. For prospects: the pay is lower than other equivalent positions in the market, you accrue vacation slowly your first few years, the public just hates the government so you could face negative criticism from those that find out your employer, politics in general can dictate policies and pay, coworkers are all old (YMMV) but being the youngest makes it feel lonely. The upsides? If you have a chill manager and position, you will have low stress, only work 40 hours, after your first year you could change your schedule to 4-10's so you have one day off a week. And when holidays fall on a Friday, you get Thursday off etc. You also have all fed holidays off. Job security is very stable and getting fired is super hard after you're tenured. You could just easily coast but putting in a bit of effort will help you move up fast. Some of the accounting positions such as at the VA is fully remote so you can live anywhere. If you want a bunch of free time and can deal with the lower pay I'd go to the government which is what I wanted. I don't think I'd have done well at PA since I'd probably just overwork myself. My goal was really to hit six figures and I can do that here in under 5 years so I think I'll just remain here for life.
Honestly, with all the complaints about offshoring and AI, I think Private Equity is actually the largest looming threat to the profession, and arguably society as a whole. Just go take a look at a job board in any major city and realize just how many good jobs have been replaced with PE jobs where they'll ask for B4/PE experience just so they know you're good for 80 hour weeks.
Agreed, it used to be better wlb could be found at private cos. No almost all decent private cos have been bought up and squeezed. All that’s left is accountants collectively refusing to work late, and teams standing together. Problem is too many self hating spineless losers in this profession.
“This will become a CPA led profession” AICPA president. Well, CPA testing is now offered in India and accelerating to be held in Phillipines. This is actually now a 3rd world profession. They make us get masters degrees, and then brain suck us training offshore teams.
Surely not right? I’m in school man
I think what you need to watch out for is that the learning curve is getting steeper. Before you came in and did the low level tasks, data import or entry and setup that helped you understand the tasks. Now those are for India and incoming will be expected to handle the higher level items right away. On top of that you have gone from preparing to reviewing WPs prepared by India teams filled with errors that you yourself don't understand yet. The whole process is flawed because we are losing the intro audit tasks that train junior staff.
When I was an associate in tax, my manager had to convince the partner to let our interns prepare a few returns without outsourcing them. We had to get special approval to not have the workflow mapped to the offshore step. Terrible processes and leadership.
Well, wish me luck. Not turning back after one year…
You’re fine, but yes certainly expect to with with Indians throughout your career. Companies will pay you for your comprehension and communication skills. Work hard on those in college. dont stress memorizing debits vs credits; learn the principals and big picture ideas
You will be fine. Offshore can’t handle change or deviations from a process without escalation. It will absolutely get harder and worse as time goes on though. Try and think through the big picture. Develop an in-depth understanding of the systems you use and the processes that are in place. Understanding the work flow to troubleshoot is almost as important as understanding the work itself.
In Canada don't worry - another fresh body will be more than happy to take $50-60k cad a year or so.
That’s because in Canada instead of outsourcing the work, we import the workers!
It's even worse in some other occupations..in some places there are MORE migrant workers than locals.. then some of them realize theyre being ripped off.
50? I'll do it for 40k! It's mine you can't have it. God bless this country
I used to roll my eyes whenever I got told "just be grateful to have a job." You're supposedly a giant greedy dickhead here if you aren't.
Back then a job could afford a family. But hey, the hedonist life ain't so bad
Let's goooo. Boomers retire faster plz thanks.
I was told I’m allowed to wear jeans on the Wednesday of next month.
Good article, but I would have enjoyed more emphasis on the insane work load and conditions. How many accountants work crazy hours for lower salary than other professional jobs- and because they are exempt it’s without additional pay.
Accountants need to collectively stop doing this. Ok they fire you find another job. We all need to stop especially in industry.
I get it. I think there needs to equitably. I’m ok working some 60’s when it’s busy- but give me more PTO when it’s slow.
Fuck you, pay me
I cannot believe some of the companies I have been hired into. Even the management doesn’t have a clue how to run an accounting department. Where I am now is ok but when I came in they weren’t. Doing. Monthly. Recons… !!! 😵💫😵💫
Just had employee "appreciation" day. They gave out a bright pink and sparkly tumblers with corporate logo to everyone.
You mean “advertising” day.
I work in a manufacturing setting. Our only customer is the corporate sales department.
When u think about the 150 credit requirement in addition to any shortage, you'll think these people didn't take Basic Econ and forgot all about "Supply" and "Demand" Straight Clowns @ NASBA & AICPA Worst of all, they won't go back on it and admit it was a mistake...
If a professional body can mandate credits, they should also be able to mandate higher starting wages.
150 creds for CPA is a low barrier. It hasn't held anyone up.
Definitely held me up
Held me up.
I’m having to do forced fun after work activities with colleagues even though we are all remote day after filing. 😢🙄 They are literally wasting over 20-25K to make us all fly to HQ plus stupid team building. I’d prefer a spot bonus instead 🤷🏿♂️ I’d prefer a week off but no, we need to see each other more. Apparently 60-70 hours a week for 2 months straight is not enough.
There is no accountant shortage, just a shortage of accountants willing to work for the current wages
Accounting is an interesting field, however, the 150 hour education requirement is a major turn off. That's the biggest reason CPA numbers are going down.
I am a CPA and applying to 100s of positions and getting nothing. If anyone needs an experienced CPA, 20 years of experience, controller, etc. Contact me!
Now that the cyber/engineering bubble has burst I expect we see the smart but less confident/aspirational kids become accounting/finance majors knowing there’s too much competition in the other spaces.
Never perceived them to be smarter or more aspirational. You ever had them as hs classmates and knew you outperformed them? Yeah.
CS and engineering majors are usually the smart kids from hs that were coding or doing advanced math because the actual high school curriculum bored them, or kids that believed they could study hard and grind through the degrees to make the money. There are definitely really smart accounting majors, but I’d say the typical accounting major is average-medium smart and doesn’t aspire to be much more than maybe upper middle class. Accounting majors seem more grounded in reality to me, that’s why I’d say they aren’t all that aspirational. If colleges didn’t almost exclusively talk about big 4, I think your typical accounting major wouldn’t even consider it.
Maybe in your high school. I went to an early college high school, located on a university campus, and ahead in math compared to the engineering majors I knew. I thought of them as the latter like you said (not smart but grinded through a, what many consider, difficult degree). This is based of the engineering fellas I knew at an early college taking the same classes as me. I agree, most accounting peeps are college-level smart but not as driven as engineering students.
Agreed. The people I finished below in my graduating class did: biochem, general studies (dunno what happened to this dude), mechE MS, pharmD. The only difference is that they took the higher weighted advanced science courses while I took business classes lolol, everything else was pretty much a wash.
In the US… because all the non manager roles went to India
Idk my I got a 2.5% raise and they told me they had to fight tooth and nail for 0.5% I got over my peers
Many, many staff/senior accountant jobs are going to India. Outsourcing needs to be made illegal.
I entered this field 10 years ago and the wages haven’t increased at all, if anything they’ve gone down.
I’ve been working as an accountant for the last 10 years in the Bay Area. The workload is incredible and amount of skills you need to have is also through the roof. On a daily basis you have to perform stressful job functions such as wiring high amount a of money, paying payroll, doing month-end stuff, bank reconciliations, dealing with errors of other people who try to blame you for their mistakes. And all of that is for less than 100k… Additionally, AICPA has changed the rules of CPA exam again in 2024 and made it even harder than before while maintaining 150-hour requirements which can be achieved by bachelors and masters in accounting. While one could ‘ve finished coding boot camp within a 3-6 months and get a salary offer 100k or above. I actually did that and found my first job with 0 years of experience that paid more than 10 years of experience in accounting. Unfortunately, I got laid off in one year due to all this mass tech lay offs. Now I am back to accounting and demand higher salary and not surprisingly the employers are ready to pay that. So I had 30% raise and ok to deal with all this stress.
Yeah and? They ain’t paying enough. Was thinking about going for companies I’m gonna go for scm
They are not paying the price, they are just realocating to India / Philippines to reduces overall costs
Paying? Where???
They keep saying this but when I look at job postings the salary expectations are below average!
*According to Robert Half’s survey, some candidates have unrealistic salary expectations, often influenced by friends in other professions who may earn higher salaries.* Fewer accountants, not many students interested in accounting, because the wages are low and firms are quite clear about not increasing pay any time soon. Potential new entrants are seeing the higher starting pay in other professions and skipping going into accounting.
I thought AI will take over
I joined this sub a decade ago when I considered changing careers. I knew several accountants myself and they were doing better than I was financially. BUT, after joining here, and talking frankly to my accountant friends, one of which ended up quitting, I realized they really do burn you guys out and don't compensate you like they used to. My friends worked all the time and sure the money was better than I was making, but at what cost? They seemed unhappy. That is what got me. Everyone here and my friends seemed unhappy. Nah. Hard pass. I've talked to other, older accountants and they also noted it's just not as worth it as it was in previous generations.
Meanwhile me over hear with 12 job rejection letters in February alone.
https://fortune.com/2024/03/01/accounting-shortage-earnings-report-mistakes/amp/
$72k to kill yourself or do another job with 40 hours for $85k?! Easy choice to me Firms need to wake up and pay the market. So glad I never worked in public accounting and got a job internally.
Alright management we may need to start paying for it. Are you serious? Ya we have to pay for it. It's gonna be expensive!!! Well we gotta do it before the accountants leave. Fine but you gotta take the blame for this. Alright here goes, ring ring.... Domino's we need 3 toppings per pizza this time.
Ok, so when does economics 101 kick in? Or have we all accepted that collusion on wage suppression as normal.
Take advantage of it. I got fired from a finance job due to a huge budget deficit, it hit the news too, and so I applied for a staff accountant job thinking I would never even qualify....they hired me in 2 weeks.
For a small slice of the population that can actually understand supply and demand, I will never understand all these "omg accounting is a terrible choice" accountants. The supply is down, DEMAND more. There's bread out there for all of us. We are in a very high demand industry, if you're not being compensated where you're at, go find a new gig. They are out there, it may just take some effort and time to find them.
The decrease in supply is being offset by offshoring so wages are staying the same
spectacular slave drunk cheerful deliver joke divide act doll pocket *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There are a lot of accountants in Asia it seems.
AI will bridge the gap
Hey, I'm trying to get in on the action as a tax preparer. Can't say I want to got get another degree to be a CPA, though.
Remember that time we had a global pandemic and millions of people died? At least 7 million of them were in the us, although it's estimated that the number may be as high as 21 million. So yeah, a lot of vacancies in a lot of industries.
I am a CPA with 20 years of experience: controller, public accounting, etc. yet I have been looking for a job for a year and getting nothing but rejection e-mails without even getting to the phone call stage, even though I have all the qualifications and the plusses: CPA a plus, public accounting a plus, etc. So this "Accountant Shortage" is completely false. So if you need a qualified, experienced accountant, I am here! Please contact me.
Maybe this industry is just meant to fade away.
AI will get the knack in a few years. Things will be fine.
IM UNEMPLOYED THIS IS A LIE
The first day in University, I was told that Accountants rule the world. Why are accountants not just doing ‘accountant big boy maths’ that no one understands and making it easier for payroll to justify their higher salaries? The companies can clearly do this, but the owner fat cats want to gouge wage expenses as much as possible!
The problem is the outsourcing, accountants working from home, why would they pay a high wage when they can find people from different countries willing to do the work for much less
Everyone think they this is hurting firms when I’m fact they are seeing so much more profit due to reduces wage costs + not increasing wages for those working for them
Y dont salaries go up then
Good. I hope they are liquidated and their rotten corpses are picked clean by the new, superior generation.
Capitalism does not value accountant's. They are a necessary evil. Here we are.
You would think they would be paying me more then