The growth of artificial intelligence will mean fewer entry-level graduates will be needed, admitted PwC’s global chair, Mohamed Kande in an interview with the BBC recently.
He explained that the firms recent job cuts were all about finding the right people to take the business forward, and in fact it needed to hire hundreds of new AI engineers but was struggling to find them.
The BBC said that every year, PwC hires thousands of new graduates in entry-level positions – including 1,300 in the UK and 3,200 in the US last year – but it recently dropped long-term plans to continue increasing its headcount.
In 2021, PwC told the world it wanted to hire 100,000 people over the course of five years. Now Kande is saying this will no longer be possible.
“When we made the plans to hire that many people, the world looked very, very different,” he told the BBC.
“Now we have artificial intelligence. We want to hire, but I don’t know if it’s going to be the same level of people that we hire – it will be a different set of people.”
Last year, PwC cut some 5,600 roles across its worldwide operation.
