Mass firings at tech companies continue as Accenture (NYSE:ACN) today announced plans to lay off around 19,000 people, or 2.5% of its current workforce, in the next 18 months.
Over half of these departures will consist of people in non-billable corporate functions, the professional services firm said.
"While we continue to hire, especially to support our strategic growth priorities, during the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we initiated actions to streamline our operations and transform our non-billable corporate functions to reduce costs. Over the next 18 months, these actions are expected to result in the departure of approximately 19,000 people (or 2.5% of our current workforce)."
The announcement was made in conjunction with the company's second quarter results that beat expectations. The IT services firm generated adjusted earnings of $2.69 per share on revenue of $15.81B that grew 5% Y/Y. New bookings of $22.1 billion grew 13% in U.S. dollars and 17% in local currency.
For Q3, the company expects revenues to be in the range of $16.1B to $16.7B vs. consensus of $16.65B.
However, it trimmed its revenue growth forecast for the full year 2023, now expecting growth of 8%-10% vs. 8%-11% previously. Free cash flow is estimated between $8B-$8.5B compared to $7.7B-$8.2B earlier.
Shares of the firm gained around 5% in Thursday's premarket hours