Accenture to cut 400 jobs in Ireland

Outsourcing giant will reduce its worldwide workforce by 19,000

Hilary O’Meara, Accenture. Picture by Shane O'Neill, Coalesce.

Outsourcing giant Accenture said it will cut 19,000 jobs worldwide, around 2.5pc of its total employee numbers, in the latest sign of a worsening global economic outlook.

The news caps one of Ireland’s worst single weeks for job cuts in the tech downturn, with cuts announced by Amazon, Indeed and Irish firm Workhuman.

Thousands of Accenture’s employees act as outsourced workers for tech giants, including Meta and Microsoft, many of which have had to reduce their workforces because of the economic downturn.

It also provides services to banks, government agencies and big industrial and pharma businesses around the world.

Accenture has around 6,000 employees in Ireland where the business is headed by country manager, Hilary O’Meara.

The company confirmed there will be job losses in Ireland.

An Accenture spokesperson said: “After a careful review of our business operations, we can confirm that we are going into collective employee consultation for a proposed redundancy programme that is anticipated to affect approximately 400 of our people in Ireland.”

Accenture increased its workforce by almost 50pc during the pandemic, due to business from tech sector partners who saw demand for their own services mushroom.

The company said that around half of the cuts will happen by the end of the summer and indicated that a majority of the layoffs will affect staff who work directly for clients, as opposed to outsourcing-focused workers.

The jobs announcement sent shares up on the markets even though the company also lowered its annual revenue and profit forecasts for the year.

On Wednesday, Indeed CEO Chris Hyams suggested the tech sector could remain sluggish for months to come.

“It is clear the job market will continue to cool after the recent post-Covid boom,” he said, announcing cuts at the jobsite firm that could affect around 200 of the company’s 1,500 staff in Ireland.

“It is becoming increasingly likely that HR tech revenue will decline in 2023 and potentially again in 2024. In the US, we are expecting job openings will likely decrease to pre-pandemic levels of about 7.5 million, or even lower over the next two to three years.”

Earlier this week, the Irish human resources tech firm Workhuman announced a 10pc cut of its workforce, while Amazon said it would lay off 9,000 workers in a second wave of layoffs.

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