CPA Shortage Going Forward

Everyone in the CPA industry is aware of the shortage of accountants. It’s a pretty straightforward problem – but let’s look at some numbers and trends. 📈

There are a few factors contributing to this shortage. One is the aging workforce. According to the AICPA, almost 75% of the CPA workforce met the retirement age in 2020. So how about retention?

🏫 A recent study by the Institute of Management Accountants found that accountants between 18 and 36 experienced the highest turnover (39%) over the past 24 months and are most likely (26%) to leave their current employer in the next 12 months. 8% are considering leaving the profession altogether!

How about the pipeline of accountants coming out of school to take over the profession? In a recent Wall Street Journal article reported that accounting graduates have dropped by the highest percentage in years. In 2022, there were 47,070 students who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting, down 7.8% from the previous year. This is the largest drop in a single year since at least 1994. Further, 18,240 students received a master’s degree in the same academic year, down 6.4% from the prior year. 📉

Overall, the article goes on to detail that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 1.65 million accountants and auditors in the US in 2022, down 15.9% from 2019.

So what’s behind all this? The most frequent factors quoted are (in no particular order):

➡️ Long hours and burnout

➡️ Low pay and difficulty of career path/growth

➡️ 150 hour requirement in relation to pay and compared to other majors

➡️ Continuing Technology and Automation requirements

I’m sure there are various other issues, but these are the factors you hear most often.

🏢 So what’s the solution? Odds are it’s not just one thing but addressing the factors (above) in some combination will have to be where the profession starts. Either way you can bet things are going to get even more interesting in the near term given these numbers.

#AccountingShortage #futureofwork #cpacareers #careercoach