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Is Tech Causing Both CPA Shortage and Low Salaries?

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The number of accounting degree completions from bachelor’s programs from 1994-2021. Source: 2023 AICPA Trends Report

 

There’s a paradox going on.

By CPA Trendlines Research

A working paper by three academics presents a paradoxical contradiction in the accounting industry. Somehow, technology, which is starting to replace some accounting functions, is causing a shortage of accounting professionals. And despite the high demand for the few graduates who major in accounting, starting salaries are lower than in related professions.

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And in a related paradox, technology’s most powerful tools may be augmenting the accountant’s workload.

How can all this be concurrent?
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How Firms Are Compensating Their COOs

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Real-life examples. About 29% are owners.

By Kristen Rampe
Rosenberg Associates

More and more firms are exploring the benefits of adding a chief operating officer (COO) to their leadership ranks. The COO role often encompasses strategic CPA firm leadership, holding partners accountable, making decisions in line with the firm’s strategy and overseeing all administrative functions.

MORE: Help! A Partner Wants to Retire Really Early
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This position can significantly reduce the time client service partners spend attending to these duties. And often the COO can do them better, as they aren’t distracted by the next fire drill from a high-profile accounting client. Their only client is the firm.
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More Big Firms Shut Their Doors to New College Grads

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Some 88.7% of top firms rate problem-solving skills among the most important criteria in hiring new college grads. Technical skills rank fifth, at 67%. (NACE)

Firms that overhired in the COVID-19 boom are now trimming their ranks.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Despite widespread concerns in the profession about a talent shortage, the largest accounting firms in a new survey are cutting back on their hiring of new college accounting graduates by 16.1 percent this year.

MORE in STAFFING & RECRUITING: Employee Retention Is Easier Than Attraction | Payroll Leads Job Gains in Tax & Accounting Sector |  Disruptors: Talent Crisis? What Talent Crisis? |  Letting Staff Go After Tax Season? Bad Idea |  Firms Culling Clients as Staffing Woes Persist | Compensation’s Up, but Up Enough to Retain Staff?

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Reflecting broader economic uncertainties and budgetary constraints, half of all the biggest firms surveyed are gearing down for a recession, marking a sharp turnaround from the hiring spree sparked by a global pandemic that forced industries across the globe into transformational change, often staffed and driven by the biggest accounting and consulting firms.

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Payroll Leads Job Gains in Tax & Accounting Sector

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Overall accounting profession employment

 

Everyone is earning more this month, and most downs are slight.

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

The tax and accounting profession is not a bad place for job seekers, it seems. A new analysis by CPA Trendlines shows a lot of up notes, including some in the double digits.

MORE ON JOBS: Let Interns Fix the Staffing Shortage? | Accountants Bullish Locally, Bearish Nationally | Accounting Hiring Hits Another High | Compensation’s Up, but Up Enough to Retain Staff? | Staff Wages Hit Record High | Despite Staffing Crunch, Firms Freeze Pay Raises | Tax & Accounting Firms Grow for 9th Straight Month | Tax & Accounting Profession Grows, but Wages Don’t
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New highs are coming in:

  • The accounting profession overall
  • Staff earnings
  • Payroll staff
  • Payroll staff earnings
  • Women overall and in CPA firms

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Compensation’s Up, but Up Enough to Retain Staff?

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young woman seated at laptop counting money

People are leaving the profession. More money is one solution.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The AICPA’s 2023 National Management of an Accounting Practice (MAP) Survey came up with an odd statistic. Kind of hard to believe until you get the context.

The finding: the median employee turnover rate across all CPA firms is … 0 percent.

Yes, that’s a zero.

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But wait. A median, as they say, is only half the story.

The bigger story – the broader context – is that more than half the responding practices had zero turnover, so the median fell at zero percent. But that goose egg doesn’t reflect the reality of firms at the other side of the spectrum.
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