Unpleasant work or low pay? What’s behind the auditor shortage
Auditing firms are struggling to attract people into the profession because the role is demanding and the work unpleasant, the head of the corporate regulator says.
ASIC chairman Joe Longo told a parliamentary inquiry into the regulator on Friday that the auditing profession also had “long-term staffing challenges”, partly because being an auditor was a “high-risk” occupation because of heavy regulation of the sector.
ASIC chairman Joe Longo says auditing has become an unattractive profession to enter. Alex Ellinghausen
However, Labor committee chairman Deborah O’Neill said the key reason firms had a staffing problem was the low pay of junior auditors compared with the oversized pay packets of partners at the large auditing firms.
She and Mr Longo agreed on one thing: the once sought-after and safe career choice of auditor or accountant did not have the same appeal it did in decades past.
A survey of accounting firms by professional body Chartered Accountants ANZ, published in January, highlighted the widespread shortages of auditors, accountants and tax accountants across the sector.
Firms also complained to CA ANZ that although they received a high number of applications for vacant roles, “only a small number of applicants had the qualifications, skills and experience required to do the job”.
This finding is consistent with the results of last year’s Financial Review Top 100 Accounting Firms survey, in which most firms cited ongoing staffing woes as the biggest impediment to increasing revenue.
Mr Longo said he had been briefed by his staff many times about the decline in interest from university graduates in becoming auditors.
“The audit professionals globally and nationally, [it’s] a challenge for them to attract
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