The range of accounting graduates employed by U.S. CPA corporations elevated nearly 5 proportion factors, from 30.1% in 2018 to 34.8% in 2020, in accordance with a brand new report from the AICPA.
The traits report, launched Wednesday, discovered that Asian/Pacific Islander, Black/African-American, and Hispanic/Latino accounting graduate new hires all elevated 1.9, 0.6, and 1.6 proportion factors, respectively, in 2020, marking their highest (or close to highest) proportion of recent hires within the historical past of the AICPA traits report.
The AICPA’s report additionally discovered that faculties and universities within the U.S. noticed whole accounting undergraduate enrollment decline 7.8% from fall 2019 to fall 2021, with freshman enrollment down 13.1%. Graduate-level enrollment, nonetheless, has elevated 4.9% since 2019.
“Lately, agency and group leaders elevated their focus and techniques to handle the varied components of range, fairness and inclusion all through their workplaces and workforces,” mentioned Jan Taylor, tutorial in residence, tutorial and pupil engagement on the Affiliation of Worldwide Licensed Skilled Accountants, in a press release. “And, in flip, one of many highlights on this 12 months’s report is the rising range throughout the occupation. There’s extra work to be carried out on this entrance, however by persevering with to faucet into completely different folks, cultures and views, our occupation continues to be nicely positioned to unravel even essentially the most complicated and difficult points.”
U.S. CPA corporations employed 10% fewer accounting graduates in 2020 than in 2019, largely because of the pandemic, the report discovered. And whereas COVID-19 prompted a lower in CPA examination candidates in 2020, there was a 6% enhance in new examination candidates from 2020-2021.
“The demand in our occupation for CPAs is excessive, however the decline within the recruitment pool was exacerbated by the pandemic as employees’ priorities shifted and profession paths had been re-evaluated,” Taylor added. “The AICPA and different stakeholders within the occupation are centered on addressing these challenges together with anticipating the continuing modifications shaping our financial system. Because the tempo of change will increase, we’re accelerating our efforts on a number of profession-wide initiatives that entice, encourage, and have interaction the following technology of CPAs.”
Different findings from the report embody:
- Accounting bachelor’s and grasp’s graduates dropped within the 2019–2020 tutorial 12 months — down 2.8% and eight.4%, respectively.
- Non-accounting graduates employed into accounting and finance corporations elevated by 10% in 2020.
- 74% of CPA corporations count on to rent the identical quantity or extra accounting grads in 2022 than 2021.
- Extra U.S. CPA corporations count on to rent new accounting graduates into accounting and finance capabilities for 2022 (36%) vs. 2021 (28%).
- Accounting graduate new hires are more and more being assigned to audit, a shift of 11.5 proportion factors between 2018 and 2020.
- The variety of CPA examination candidates who handed their fourth part of the examination decreased 11% between 2019 and 2020. The variety of profitable candidates additionally decreased 5.5% between 2020 and 2021.
The report analyzes knowledge reported to Built-in Postsecondary Schooling Information Methods and statistical projections primarily based on college responses for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 tutorial years, in addition to agency responses from the 2020 calendar 12 months. For the total report, head to the AICPA’s web site right here.