The accounting talent crisis is shifting, but most firms haven't noticed

There's an outdated narrative still cycling through the accounting industry that the talent pipeline is weak. 

You've heard the tropes: Boomer CPAs are retiring in droves. Accounting is too boring and tax season is too busy to attract younger workers. We're supposedly hanging off the edge of a workforce cliff and about to enter a free fall of hiring crises. 

But I'm not buying it anymore. I think the latest story is that capacity pressure is easing in the industry. Instead of worrying about future hiring needs, it's time for firm leaders to fully understand the major drivers smoothing out the talent crunch and intelligently utilize the incredible resources available to them.

The first major shift that's helping reduce hiring pressure is the recent surge in Gen Z college graduates choosing to enter the accounting field. This sounds counterintuitive to everything we've heard about young workers' perceptions of the field. But the reality is that accounting offers high placement rates and competitive salaries. 

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for college graduates was 5.7% at the end of 2025, compared to just 4.2% for the overall population. Accounting offers a stable environment for Gen Z graduates who want to start working and earning income right out of school. We never thought it would happen, but accounting is actually the cool, hip profession that everybody wants to get into.

The industry is also responding to concerns around competitive pay for entry level positions. We recently hosted Dan Hood, the editor-in-chief at Accounting Today, on The Modern CPA Success Show. He shared the results of the publication's recent salary survey, which showed a big jump following the previous report. 

In its first year, 2024, the survey revealed that entry-level accountants were earning $10,000 less compared to their peers in other business professions. But in the 2025 survey, the average salary for new hires jumped by $10,000. "They saw the gap and said, 'Oh, we need to start paying everybody enough,'" Dan told us.

Gen Z is part of the solution emerging in accounting's talent crisis, but it's not the only one. As the initial staff crunch became apparent, many firms started offshoring work to firms in places like India, the Philippines and Mexico. In fact, according to the AICPA, 29% of firms utilize offshoring, primarily for individual and business tax returns. That number jumps to 46% when looking only at top-performing firms. 

Clearly, offshoring isn't just about cutting costs — it's also about expanding capacity. A study from Grant Thornton confirmed this when it found that most CFOs opt to outsource for strategic factors like scaling, standardizing processes and focusing on higher-value functions.

We're constantly hearing that firms of all sizes need to focus on CAS and other value-based services. Expanding staff with team members from across the world is finally making that possible. 

The final factor helping with the accounting talent crisis is, of course, continually improving technology and automation. We've created AI that can help batch routine tasks and it's helping us get more work done in a shorter period of time. 

There's a lot of conjecture around how much AI will impact jobs, especially for entry-level positions. But at the end of the day, I think it will just become embedded into the work we do like every other technology that's come out over the years.

AI is also freeing up space to help reach the goals everyone wants in the accounting profession: a better work-life balance (especially during tax season) and more time for higher-level advisory services. Instead of spending hours on bank reconciliations and expense categorization, team members can automate these processes and provide human oversight to ensure accuracy. AI isn't causing an apocalyptic inflection point; it's providing an opportunity the industry has been waiting for. 

Better hours, more interesting work — those are the things accountants at every level crave. AI can help prevent burnout and retain employees while also attracting younger workers who think it's cool to leverage this technology in their daily work.

With all these factors influencing the profession, I urge you not to buy into the hype that there's not enough talent to fuel the future of accounting. 

We're experiencing an incredible period where accounting graduates are lining up with applications in hand, offshoring is freeing up firm time for higher-value services, and AI is automating much of the busy work that no one loves to do. It's time to leverage these opportunities and expand your firm's capabilities and offerings for serious growth in the years ahead.