PwC to fire 1,800 staff

PricewaterhouseCoopers will hand out pink slips to 1,800 US employees next month as the accounting giant streamlines its advisory practice and shifts in-house technology developers to work more closely with frontline professionals.

Some staff in the firm's tax and assurance practices, along with those assigned to offshore offices, will be laid off.

Employees learned of the job cuts, which will affect about 2.4 percent of the Big Four firm's 75,000 employees, in a memo from the firm's senior partner Paul Griggs on Wednesday.

"Execution of our strategy requires tough decisions, including those that impact our workforce," Griggs wrote to employees, according to a copy of the memo.

"We are positioning our firm for the future, creating capacity to invest and anticipating and reacting to market opportunities."

BLOOMBERG