Accenture Plc, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, will curb hiring and halt some promotions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
New hiring will focus on the replacement of subcontractors, Chief Executive Officer Julie Sweet said Thursday on an earnings call. Start dates for some new employees have also been pushed back.
The Dublin-based company will continue to retrain current employees in areas such as technology and cloud services, Sweet said. It has retrained 37,000 workers in those areas since the crisis began in March.
“We’re going after some cost structural decreases that are helping,” Sweet said. “And then as we move forward, we’ll do things like we’re in our annual performance process.”
Accenture has also moved employees in its strategy and consulting divisions to help public-sector clients improve their operations.
The firm raised the floor of its full-year earnings forecast. It announced adjusted third-quarter profit of $1.90 a share, which beat the $1.85 average estimate of 22 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
The shares gained 5.9% to $213.71 at 1:35 p.m. in New York, marking their biggest increase since April 6.
Sourced from Bloomberg - Written by Steven Lubbers