McKinsey Plans To Eliminate Nearly 2,000 Jobs In One Of Its Biggest Rounds Of Layoffs: Report

McKinsey, which has seen rapid growth in its headcount during the past decade, is looking to restructure how it organises its support teams to centralise some of the roles

Under a plan dubbed Project Magnolia, McKinsey is hoping the move will help preserve the compensation pool for its partners.

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McKinsey & Co. plans to fire about 2,000 employees, one of the consulting giant’s biggest rounds of cuts ever, as reported by news agency Bloomberg.

According to people privy to the development, Bloomberg said that McKinsey with this move is expected to focus on support staff in roles that don’t have direct contact with clients, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Under a plan dubbed Project Magnolia, the management team is hoping the move will help preserve the compensation pool for its partners. The firm, which has seen rapid growth in its headcount during the past decade, is looking to restructure how it organises its support teams to centralise some of the roles.

The plan is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks, and the final number of roles to be eliminated from its 45,000 workforce could still change, one of the sources said. That headcount is up from 28,000 just five years ago and 17,000 in 2012.

“We are redesigning the way our non-client-serving teams operate for the first time in more than a decade, so that these teams can effectively support and scale with our firm,” DJ Carella, a company representative, said in an emailed statement. Carella said the firm is still hiring professionals who deal directly with clients.

The company clocked a record $15 billion in revenue in 2021, and surpassed that figure in 2022.

McKinsey’s move comes two years after Bob Sternfels took over as global managing partner following a vote by its roughly 650 senior partners to oust his predecessor, Kevin Sneader. The management shift was the culmination of a tumultuous period for the firm, which took flak for its role in advising the makers of the painkiller OxyContin and faced scrutiny of various other business ties.

Companies in industries from finance to technology to retailing are reducing staff amid a slowdown in demand and predictions of a looming recession. Tech giants including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have announced plans for deep cuts, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and other top banks have been eliminating thousands of positions.