Accenture layoffs: In a setback to thousands of Indian employees, Accenture, the global professional services company is set to lay off 5 percent of its workforce. The move will be affecting thousands of Indians employed by the company, in the wake of sluggish business due to Covid-19 pandemic, a report in Australian Financial Review has stated. Also Read: PM Modi Directs To Integrate Electronic Pension Payment Order With DigiLocker For Pensioners


Accenture has over 5 lakh employees worldwide and the company has decided to cut 5 percent of its low-performing workforce.

As per the report, Acenture CEO held an internal staff meeting in the middle of August. Accenture currently has 513,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries

Thousands of Indians to be affected:

It is reported that India has the largest Accenture employee base of nearly 2 lakh employees and it could see thousands of workers being affected by the move. News agency IANS has reportd that the company has said it is not planning extraordinary global workforce actions.

Also Read: Salary Cuts & Layoffs! Survey Shows Coronavirus Lockdown Severely Impact Work-Life Balance Of People

"Every year, as part of our performance process, we have conversations with our people about how they are performing, areas for improvement, their potential to progress, and whether they are a long term fit for Accenture,” it was quoted as saying.

"This year, across all parts of our business and all career levels, we will identify approximately 5 per cent of our people as our lowest performers, and these individuals will transition out of Accenture. This is consistent with our actions each year," the company has said.

According to the AFR report on Tuesday, its CEO Julie Sweet said that in a normal year, the company transitions out about 5 per cent and hire to replace them, because it is in a demand scenario, but this is not the scenario now, so if they manage out the same percentage of people and don't replace them, it allows them to continue to invest and preserve some people who have lower chargeability for when the market comes back.

Accenture said that In India, "we continue to hire, and as part of our ongoing compensation programs, we also recently recognized a number of our people with bonuses and promotions".

The company finished its second quarter at the end of February and was growing 8 per cent, but the growth had collapsed to 1.3 per cent owing to the pandemic.