Accounting Graduates Drop By Highest Percentage in Years (wsj.com) 38
The pool of U.S. students who completed accounting degrees dropped sharply in the latest available academic year as more workers in the profession retire without an adequate pipeline of entrants to fill the gap. From a report: Roughly 47,070 students earned a bachelor's degree in accounting in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, down 7.8% from the prior year, according to an annual report released Thursday by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a professional organization. About 18,240 students received a master's degree in that academic year, down 6.4% from the prior year. That is compared with drops of 2.8% and 4.7% for graduates with bachelor's and master's degrees in accountants in the prior-year period, respectively.
Overall, the number of U.S. accounting graduates with either degree dropped 7.4% to 65,305 in the 2021 to 2022 year, the largest drop in a single year since at least the 1994 to 1995 year, when 51,622 students graduated in accounting, a review of AICPA data showed. Fewer people are selecting accounting as their career, citing low salaries compared with industries such as tech and banking. Young workers are wary of the requirement of 150 college credit hours for getting a certified public accountant license, posing additional costs and time commitment.
Overall, the number of U.S. accounting graduates with either degree dropped 7.4% to 65,305 in the 2021 to 2022 year, the largest drop in a single year since at least the 1994 to 1995 year, when 51,622 students graduated in accounting, a review of AICPA data showed. Fewer people are selecting accounting as their career, citing low salaries compared with industries such as tech and banking. Young workers are wary of the requirement of 150 college credit hours for getting a certified public accountant license, posing additional costs and time commitment.
Accounting and AI (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem right now is that AI is too good at making shit up with 100% confidence.
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The problem is that accountants need to actually understand wtf the business is doing to make money go in and out of the accounts.
AI is unlikely to be able to do this without being continuously stateful, and it will require a bunch of business specific training for it to be any good at its job.
Moreover, businesses are continuously evolving their operations, so the AI will need to be continuously trained in order to keep up.
Someone still needs to manage all that training, and QA the actions of the AI to veri
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Since AI will be what tests that shit, it should be all right.
Garbage in, garbage out...
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Somewhere, somehow, a human has to sign off on it.
And it's their head if it's wrong, including potentially jail time.
Sorry, but I don't think AI is doing anything accountants do. It might replace some back-office finance staff, but not the person who has to put their name and professional integrity on a form to central government under penalty of actual imprisonment.
And even that kind of person won't accept numbers generated from some AI as the data source.
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Only external auditing requires lots of travel. Tax accounting and internal accounting/auditing require minimal travel.
That's why accounting is so popular with women--minimum long distance travel.
N.B.
Accountants, want a change of pace? An opportunity to work outdoors?
Have you considered becoming an electrician?
Our complex book of rules (NEC) only changes every 3 years! And it makes way
more sense than any tax code! Travel optional/available.
Can't give up Excel? Jobs in Estimating and Project Management a
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So we basically turned it into a load of hot air and vaporware.
Yep, sounds about right.
Need simpler tax laws (Score:4, Insightful)
We wouldn't need so many accountants if tax laws were simpler.
Not really (Score:2)
The demand for accountants is big guys dodging taxes. "Simpler" isn't what you want, it's "less corrupt" that you're after. And you don't get that with simpler laws, you get that by paying attention to who you're voting for and voting in Primary elections.
I have to disagree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: Both my parents are accountants, now retired. Dad was a comptroller, IE a business accountant manager, mom did personal accounts, trusts, and that stuff.
I have to disagree on the demand is "big guys dodging taxes". That's more where you get into accounting lawyers who can do more than just make a rough guess on whether something is deductible or not.
Mid size businesses are beyond quickbooks. That's into needing a comptroller, at least for true "mid size". Small businesses might be able to do the quickbooks thing.
And I'd argue that "less corrupt" and "simpler" are often the same thing. Because it's the complexity that allows the corruption, for the most part.
I'd also argue that simpler would be worth it in the sense of everybody spending a lot less time, money, and effort in figuring out what they're legally obligated to pay.
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Sorry friend, I have a rule: Never trust an accountant, and especially never trust the children of accountants.
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Bingo.
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I'm an actual accountant and find the 150 credit requirement to be a joke
it would be better if they made the actual cpa exam difficult instead of making people take more useless classes
most accountants I know can't figure out anything or manage a simple spreadsheet and they did the 150 hours whereas I didn't need do ages ago and have no problem managing large accounting systems, drafting policy/position memos, basic scripting/programming/etc....
further, generally speaking the salaries I observe are pretty r
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it would be better if they made the actual cpa exam difficult instead of making people take more useless classes
The problem is that exams don't actually indicate ability to do the job either. Mom's seen new hires, with their CPA, having no clue on how to balance something as simple as a checkbook.
Even if you made it "more difficult", you're still only selecting those who test better. We probably need more apprenticeship type programs.
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OK, how? Because the complexity of accounting laws have a reason, if they are easier, even more loopholes would exist.
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Complexity creates loopholes.
Example: let's pretend everyone owes 17% tax above a certain income threshhold. No deductions, no claiming losses. Boom, simple and easy-to-understand tax code. The 17% figure is just an example, but you get the idea.
Many loopholes on domestic earnings involve some sort of deduction for expenses or claiming losses that only existed on paper - like transferring huge amounts of wealth/IP to some other business division and then pretending like we owed money to that division to
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Taxes are not just a way of getting money for the state, they also serve the purpose of getting people to do what is good for the state. It would be good if we have a next generation, so people get an incentive to have kids. It would be good if people were not home- and penniless when they get old, so we offer tax reductions for pension funds. It would be good if people cared to get insured so they don't get to rely on social services should they have an accident, so we do the same for insurances. It would
Shame really (Score:2)
While most accountants should not be necessary for things like tax prep, having a good accountant is actually pretty nice. I have some specialized tax stuff as well that really needs an accountant... but it is hard to find good ones for it.
Machine learning can solve much of the tedious stuff that a bookkeeper does, and about 2/3 of what a real accountant does, but that remainder actually needs some expertise.
Collective realization (Score:1)
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There's no practical alternative to fiat currency. Using precious metals would just benefit countries with the biggest mines, and make us waste too much time mining. Plus, if an asteroid with the metal is found and Earth is flooded with the metal, all heck would break lose.
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Re: Collective realization (Score:2)
Is there some way to (Score:2)
Account for this
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It's worse than that, there's fewer young people in general.
Too few accountants (Score:2)
And white collar criminals rejoiced
It's not just accountants (Score:2)
Our population is stagnating. Actually, factoring in mortality before retirement, our working population is shrinking. When you look at the age pyramid [populationpyramid.net] of the USA, you'll see that the age bracket of 20-25 year olds is about on par with the one for the 60-65 year olds. Factoring in deaths in the age range between 20 and 65 (i.e. working age), you already have a shrinking population.
And if you use that slider on the page to take a look what it's gonna be like 15 years from now, it's not improving. Actually, i
There's a good reason for it (Score:1)
My wife is a CPA/MBA. Her job sucks. She's expected to work all day, every day, 7 days a week, to meet hard deadlines imposed by the Federal Government. She's not allowed to hire help. She's not allowed to push deliverables. She not only does her job, but the jobs of a couple of operations people who have been laid off and their work dumped on her.
This is how accountants are treated everywhere. We even considered getting her a job at my company. When one was posted, the job description was honest at least:
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That's a uniquely American problem.
The rest of the developed world has working hours laws.
this is because... (Score:2)
People have forgotten it's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wide accountancy?
These results (Score:2)
These results were audited by nobody, because we couldn't find a qualified auditor.