The giants of the consulting world face an unusual quandary this year: Many of them are in the process of dismissing hundreds of staffers even after they hired thousands of college graduates to deal with new demand. Now, one of the largest of them all is looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to change that.
Deloitte LLP is using AI to evaluate existing staffers’ skills and map out plans that would shift employees away from quieter parts of the business and into roles that are more in demand. It is part of a broader bet by the professional services firm that the technology would allow it to moderate hiring growth over time.
The moves came after Deloitte added 130,000 staffers this year.
Photo: Reuters
However, in the middle of those hirings, the firm warned thousands of staffers in the US and UK that their jobs were at risk of becoming redundant after the company was forced to restructure certain areas of the business in response to a slowdown in demand.
“It is obviously a great objective to be able to avoid large swings of hirings and layoffs,” Deloitte global chief talent officer Stevan Rolls said. “You could always be more efficient and effective about finding the right people.”
Deloitte and rival professional services firms have already begun experimenting with using generative AI to eliminate repetitive, time-consuming work that was long reserved for junior staffers, such as prepping documents for internal meetings or gathering troves of data for a client pitch.
Generative AI, which was popularized by ChatGPT, can produce sentences or essays in response to simple questions and it crafts these responses after being trained on reams of existing material.
With the latest projects, the firms are hoping the technology could help them better manage the thousands of employees they add every year.
Deloitte’s total headcount is now nearing 460,000 after its hiring spree earlier this year. That is triple the number of new hires compared with a decade ago, when revenue was roughly half of what it is today.
“Let’s imagine Deloitte was so successful and we doubled our size again, I’d be really worried about hiring a quarter of a million people a year,” Rolls said. “It might not be fewer, but it might be the same as we hire now.”
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
RECORD LOW: Global firms’ increased inventories, tariff disputes not yet impacting Taiwan and new graduates not yet entering the market contributed to the decrease Taiwan’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest for the month in 25 years, as strong exports and resilient domestic demand boosted hiring across various sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate eased to 3.34 percent, the best performance in 24 years, suggesting a stable labor market, although a mild increase is expected with the graduation season from this month through August, the statistics agency said. “Potential shocks from tariff disputes between the US and China have yet to affect Taiwan’s job market,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling
UNCERTAINTIES: The world’s biggest chip packager and tester is closely monitoring the US’ tariff policy before making any capacity adjustments, a company official said ASE Technology Holding Inc (日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packager and tester, yesterday said it is cautiously evaluating new advanced packaging capacity expansion in the US in response to customers’ requests amid uncertainties about the US’ tariff policy. Compared with its semiconductor peers, ASE has been relatively prudent about building new capacity in the US. However, the company is adjusting its global manufacturing footprint expansion after US President Donald Trump announced “reciprocal” tariffs in April, and new import duties targeting semiconductors and other items that are vital to national security. ASE subsidiary Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) is participating in Nvidia
RSS