Top Aussie consulting firm sacks dozens

Financial and engineering company Aurecon, which has 15 offices in Australia including in most capital cities and several cities in Queensland, has had to cut roles.

The company revealed to news.com.au on Thursday that a small amount of lay-offs had taken place.

Around 70 employees across Australia have been terminated in emails sent last week.

Other roles have been redeployed into different departments, though the firm would not say how many.

Their roles spanned over the design, engineering and advisory arms of Aurecon.

The cuts account for just under two per cent of Aurecon’s Australian workforce, which had a headcount of 43000, prior to the redundancy announcement.

Aurecon works on national defence projects as well as health and other related projects, and holds some high-profile contracts.

An Aurecon spokesperson said they had “regrettably” had to make employees redundant due to a “change in demand for services”.

We have spoken with individuals who are affected directly and are supporting these people.

News.com.au understands some senior staff members lost their jobs.

“As a multidisciplinary business, we are experiencing growth in many sectors and are continuing to recruit,” the spokesperson added.

Currently, 549 job are being advertised, despite the lay-offs.

Aurecon has over 7000 employees, so its Australian workforce makes up more than half of its total labour force.

There are Aurecon offices in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam as well as Australia.

A number of financial firms have been gutted in recent weeks as turbulent market conditions have made companies think job cuts are necessary.

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Management consulting firm McKinsey, which works in some similar spaces to Aurecon in the consulting industry, is terminating 1400 Australians as demand dries up.

The total cuts will amount to about three per cent of headcount.

McKinsey reportedly has 47,000 employees, up from 2012 when it had less than half that, at 17,000.

Then last Friday, tech consulting firm Accenture revealed it will slash 19,000 jobs including some in Australia.

Accenture’s cuts will impact 2.5 per cent of its global workforce as it anticipates lower demand for its services.

Half of the jobs expected to be impacted are back office roles with cuts expected to take place over the next 18 months.

Accenture’s cost cutting exercise is expected to slug the firm $US1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) in charges associated with the cost cutting, including “$US1.2 billion of employee severance and other personnel costs” and another “$US300 million of costs related to the consolidation of office space”.

There’s also consulting giant KPMG, which will eliminate roughly 700 roles in the US, equivalent to two per cent of its overall headcount.

About 200 KPMG jobs are expected to go in Australia.