Accenture does not want employees who do not know how to adapt to AI. That is why they will replace 11,000 workers with people who do know

The Accenture Technology Consultant has announced a radical transformation of its template. In the last three months, the company has fired about 11,000 people from its ranks, a round of mass layoffs that will also combine with massive hiring rounds for a single reason: adaptation to AI. And is that according to They point From Accenture, those employees who fail to recycle in AI will have to leave the company.

Change of strategy. “We are dispensing within a compressed period of people for whom recycling is not a viable way,” explained Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, at a conference with analysts. The consultant has reduced her global workforce in more than 11,000 people in the last three months, from 791,000 employees to 779,000. The business optimization program will cost 865 million dollars, mainly in compensation.

They are not just cuts. While they dispense with workers who cannot adapt, Accenture plans Increase your template Total in the next fiscal year in markets such as the United States and Europe. The company has doubled its number of professionals specialized in AI and data since 2023, from 40,000 to 77,000. Besides, They assure Having trained more than 550,000 employees in the foundations of the generative AI. “Our number one strategy is training”, assured Sweet, although also acknowledged that ‘the rhythm demanded by this new transformation does not allow everyone to wait’.

Figures. Accenture billed 69.7 billion dollars in the last fiscal year, a growth of 7% that the company attributes directly to the mass demand of its clients to implement AI in its organizations. The generative AI projects represented 5.1 billion dollars in new hiring, compared to the 3,000 million of the previous year. “Our early investment in AI is paying off,” Sweet explained in the middle CNBC.

Adaptation. Although Accenture presents AI as an expansion engine, the reality of the sector is more complex. The consultant foresee that income growth slows up to between 2% and 5% in this fiscal year. The demand for short -term consulting projects has been weak for two years, and the cuts in the spending of the US federal government, which represents 8% of its income, complicate the forecasts. Accenture actions They fell 2.7% after the ad, reaching its lowest level since November 2020.

Mass layoffs in Big Tech. Accenture’s movement is not unknown. And is that great technology They have been replacing employees for some time traditional by specialists in AI. Microsoft has cut thousands of positions This year, but his CEO Satya Nadella confirmed In July that the total template remains “relatively unchanged” thanks to new hiring. Goal He fired 5% of his staff At the beginning of the year, although he later filled many of those positions with specialists in AI during the summer. Nor do all companies seem to be right in that balance, since Klarna, After breastfeeding their plans from AIhas reallocated engineering and marketing employees to customer service, as revealed by the Business Insider medium.

What comes now. Accenture wait Save more than $ 1 billion with this restructuring, money that promises to reinvest in your business and workforce. “Each CEO and Board of Directors recognize that advanced AI is critical for the future. The challenge now is that most companies are not yet prepared for AI,” pointed out Sweet

Cover image | Roberto Fiadone

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