PwC cuts head count amid slowing revenue growth

PwC trimmed its global workforce by 5,600 in its 2025 fiscal year, an apparent departure from a previous pledge to boost head count.

Back in 2021, Bob Moritz, PwC’s former global chair, said the firm would hire 100,000 new employees by the middle of 2026. With the job cuts that happened in 2025, the firm would have to add more than 30,000 jobs in the fiscal year to meet that prior target.

PwC declined CFO Brew’s request for comment.

The headcount update arrived in PwC’s annual report, published October 28. Also in the report, the firm said its global revenue climbed 2.9% to $56.9 billion for fiscal 2025. That adds up to another year of slowdown: In fiscal 2024, the firm’s revenue growth rate dropped to 3.7% from 9.9% in 2023.

Other Big Four firms showed a rebound after a rough few year: Deloitte reported revenue growth of 4.9% to $70.5 billion in its September 30 annual review, while EY reported growth of 4% to $53.2 billion in its FY 2025 report, released on Oct. 21. Notably, given the economic volatility of 2025, their fiscal years all ended at different times: June 30 for PwC, June 27 for EY, and May 31 for Deloitte.

PwC called its revenue results “a solid performance in a challenging economic climate.” Elsewhere in the annual report, Global Chairman Mohamed Kande noted “the need to reinvent our business.”

“This year, we invested in our people, expanded our technological offerings, and continued to build leading-edge capabilities to help our clients thrive,” Kande said, calling out the firm’s nearly $1.5 billion investment “to scale next-generation AI capabilities across our network.”