A second wave of job losses, this time among professionals, is hitting the Australian economy as professional services firms, law firms, advertising agencies and universities adjust to the squeeze on their revenues due to the downturn induced by COVID-19.
Deloitte Australia, one of the big four professional services firms, yesterday announced that it would shed 700 professional staff from its 10,000-strong Australian workforce.
While revenue has grown for the financial year by 10 percent, the firm had experienced a significant decline in its revenue base across the fourth quarter as a result of the effects of COVID-19, including a decline of 19 percent year-on-year last month, Deloitte Australia chief executive officer Richard Deutsch said in a release to staff.
In particular, the consulting division, which provides advice to business and government on business processes, mergers and compliance, has been seen a sharp downturn in future work.
“From the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis two of our important principles have been to preserve as many jobs as possible while also protecting the long-term sustainability of the firm,” Deutsch said.
In April, the firm announced a short-term reduction in annualized pay of 8 percent for the majority of staff.
“Unfortunately, the last quarter of our 2020 financial year has seen a substantial drop in revenue and operating profit. We expect this trend to extend into at least the first quarter of our new financial year,” he said.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia announced last week that it would cut 400 staff from its 8,000-strong workforce, mainly from the consultancy and financial advisory division.
KPMG Australia cut 200 staff in April and last month staff opted for a 20 percent pay cut for working the same hours for four months as the firm began planning a phased return to work.
The law firms have been tight-lipped over their strategies to meet a downturn in legal work. Ashurst Australia has cut partner draws by 20 percent for six months and staff took pay cuts until next month, with a similar cut in hours.
Other firms have cut partner draws by up to 50 percent and furloughed workers, but whether legal work will pick up in the second half of this year, remains to be seen.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day