Since 2019, the number of accountants in the United States has plummeted by 16%.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: So the number of accountants has dropped since 2019. About 16% – what’s going on?
SUE COFFEY: Yeah, well, there’s the reason for the decline is numerous. But most professions are experiencing something very similar to what we’re experiencing. When you think about birth rates and the decline in birth rates over a period of time. And finally catching up with us, and that is impacting college age young adults. And then those families of those college age young adults are thinking, what is the value of education. And so our share of the pie is small, the pie is smaller, so our share of the pie is smaller. Our immigration policy doesn’t help within the United States. And that is really common to most professions. You’re talking to other law as an example or finance or whatever.
But unique to the accounting profession are things like the image of our profession, the cost and time of education. We require 150 hours of education or a master’s degree. And that’s being challenged in terms of a hurdle, getting individuals over the CPA hump. The CPA exam is a difficult exam. And so it’s challenging for some how people experience their first five years of employment is a challenge as well. And that gets to things like starting salary and workload during certain times of the year, busy season, tax season and audit season, as well as firm culture and advancement opportunities. And then the last thing I would just mention is the complexion of our profession doesn’t really match the complexion of our country or the businesses that we serve as a profession, and we need to do something there. So I guess the long and the short of it is there’s a whole host of issues that are causing this talent challenge.
CONWAY GITTENS: Why aren’t younger people attracted to becoming a CPA?
SUE COFFEY: Yeah so part of it is a perceived image of our profession. I’ve been in our profession for 30 years and I’ve had an incredible experience as a CPA in our profession. The diversity of what our profession offers in terms of the depth and breadth of opportunities is tremendous. We don’t do a good job telling that story and actually showing the younger generation what a career could look like for them and what advancement could look like and what personal growth could look like for them. And candidly, the impact that we as a profession have on economies, businesses, and individuals. I mean, we do everything from financial reporting to audits to financial planning for individuals to achieve their life goals, to tracking environmental issues and providing assurance on them to cybersecurity. I mean, the diversity of the opportunities within our profession are so vast. We do a horrible job talking about it.
CONWAY GITTENS: What are the implications for this drop off in accountants. What is the real world impact?
SUE COFFEY: Yeah so in some areas we’re actually seeing that already. So I will say in the governmental accounting and auditing space. As an example, governments are challenged to find individuals that have the skill sets they need to work in their internal accounting and finance departments. Likewise, audit firms are challenged finding the skill sets in that area as well. We need people to help file tax returns and do tax planning for businesses and individuals. If we don’t have enough accountants, we don’t have people to do that. There are filing deadlines for financial statements of publicly traded companies. Obviously, if we don’t have enough accountants, those businesses miss their deadlines. Likewise, in the audit profession, if we don’t have auditors to audit those companies, there’s no access to capital markets. So there are a whole host of ramifications if we don’t have the numbers and the quality of people we need.
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