Too many accountants?
Posted by Christie Malry on June 3, 2011 at 10:13 am
Over at the ICAEW LinkedIn group (private group, so no link, sorry), a battle has been raging over a simple enough question: are there too many chartered accountants? Paul Stankiewicz observes:
I was under the impression that at present there are too many qualified accountants out in the market place alot (sic) searching around for ever fewer jobs.
At the time of this post there are over 220 comments. And not one has had the courage or insight to tell Paul that he's an idiot. This is just the lump of labour fallacy dressed up slightly in chartered accountancy clothes.
You see, there is no limit to the work chartered accountants can do. What's causing pressure on their earnings isn't their own numbers. It's the fact that lots of companies no longer need audits and that grubby unqualified accountants are able to do great swathes of work that, once upon a time, only chartered accountants would have done.
In respect of the first, this is generally speaking, A Good Thing. No point forcing companies to buy something they don't really need, is there?
In respect of the second, companies are deciding to use unqualified people for their accounts preparation, tax compliance and a raft of other low level work. Shouldn't they be able to decide what is value for money?
As a result of these factors, even if ICAEW closed their gates today and never qualified another accountant, there would still be huge downward pressure on earnings.
The correct response should be to find new lines of work that, with your greater professional experience and knowledge, other folk simply can't do. Weeping about the halcyon days of the past and demanding protectionism is, by contrast, idiotic. Increased competition is here to stay, and not even chartered accountants should expect to be immune.
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