Accenture is cutting staff it can't retrain in the age of AI — but it still plans to hire more people (www.businessinsider.com)

Accenture told investors it is “exiting” employees it can’t reskill for the AI era even as it expects overall head count to grow next fiscal year. CEO Julie Sweet said upskilling is the company’s top priority, but the firm is moving on a “compressed timeline” for roles where reskilling isn’t viable. Accenture’s workforce fell to about 779,000 at the end of August (from ~791,000 three months earlier), and the company took roughly $615M in restructuring charges this quarter—projected to rise to ~$865M—largely for severance. At the same time it’s nearly doubled its AI and data specialists to 77,000 since fiscal 2023 and trained over 550,000 employees in generative AI fundamentals; it will also divest two acquisitions and reinvest savings into growth areas. The move underscores a broader industry trend of “rapid talent rotation”: firms trimming roles that don’t match AI, cloud, and data skill requirements while hiring aggressively in those priority areas. For the AI/ML community this signals sustained demand for applied AI, data engineering, and cloud-native consulting skills, a compressed window for retraining, and increasing corporate bets that advanced AI is expansionary rather than deflationary. Practically, expect more targeted reskilling programs, role redefinition in consulting, and continued consolidation of talent into AI-centric teams and projects.