The Big Four Are Cutting the Jobs That Grow Their Next Partners
PwC, EY, and their peers are cutting executive assistants and graduate intake because of AI. Cutting entry-level roles saves money now and quietly breaks the pipeline that grows senior people. Here is what it means for your firm.
Quick answer
The Big Four are cutting executive assistants and reducing graduate hiring by up to 30%, because AI now does the research, drafting, and admin that junior roles were built on. Cutting entry-level jobs saves money now but removes the training ground that turns juniors into senior experts. That risk is far larger for a small firm.
PwC just cut around 600 executive assistants. McKinsey trimmed roughly 200 support roles. Across the Big Four, graduate hiring is being cut by up to 30%. The stated reason, over and over, is AI.
PwC and McKinsey are not struggling firms. They are among the most profitable professional services businesses on the planet. And they are quietly removing two specific groups: the assistants who ran the calendars, and the graduates who were supposed to become the next generation of partners.
This post is about why the second group matters more than the first, and why a decision that looks smart at Big Four scale can be dangerous for a small firm that copies it.
Two cuts that look similar and are not
Cutting executive assistants and cutting graduate intake get reported in the same breath, but they are completely different decisions.
- Cutting executive assistants is a today decision. AI now handles scheduling, expenses, travel, and inbox triage, so the role shrinks. The saving is immediate and visible.
- Cutting graduate intake is a bet on ten years from now. PwC in the UK took on 1,300 entrants this year against 1,500 last year, because AI and offshoring do the research, drafting, and compliance checks juniors used to learn on.
The first cut trims a cost. The second cut trims the future. And the second one is far harder to reverse, because you cannot hire a senior person into existence when you need one. You have to grow them, and growing them takes years you did not spend.
What actually breaks when you cut the bottom rung
For a century, the entry-level job was not really about the work the junior produced. It was the training ground. You did the boring research, the first drafts, the checking, and in doing it badly and then better, you slowly became the senior person clients pay for.
AI just absorbed the exact tasks that used to turn a graduate into an expert. The firms saved the salary. They also unplugged the machine that manufactures their own future partners. Nobody feels that in the quarter they make the cut. They feel it in the year they suddenly need a senior person who was never grown.
Why is this more dangerous for a small firm?
The Big Four can absorb this risk. They have global scale, a constant hiring market, and the brand to pull in experienced people whenever a gap appears. If they under-grow their own talent for a few years, they can buy their way out.
A ten-person firm cannot. Your version of this is the junior seat that does the first pass, the rough draft, the initial research. It was never very profitable on its own. It was how you built people. If you quietly stop hiring for it because a tool now does the first pass, you get a cheaper year and a hollow bench. When the pipeline you skipped comes due, there is no one on it, and you cannot afford to poach the way a global firm can.
How to use AI on juniors without breaking the pipeline
The answer is not to keep junior roles exactly as they were and ignore the tools. It is to change what the junior seat is for.
- Let AI do the first pass, and put the junior on the second. Reviewing, correcting, and improving AI output is a faster way to build judgment than producing the first draft by hand.
- Move juniors up the value chain sooner. The time AI frees up should go into client exposure, decision-making, and the parts of the work that actually grow an expert.
- Protect at least one training seat. Even if the pure economics say cut it, treat it as an investment in the senior person you will need in three years.
The Big Four are making a calculated bet that they can rebuild their pipeline later. Most firms cannot. The ones that come through this with a healthy bench are the ones who used AI to accelerate how fast juniors become seniors, rather than using it as a reason to stop hiring juniors at all.
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Frequently asked questions
- Are the Big Four really cutting jobs because of AI?
- Yes. PwC cut around 600 executive assistants, McKinsey trimmed roughly 200 support roles, and Big Four graduate recruitment has been cut by up to 30%, with firms citing AI and offshoring automating research, drafting, and compliance work.
- Will AI replace executive assistants?
- AI is absorbing the scheduling, expense, travel, and admin tasks that defined the role, so headcount is shrinking. Assistants who move toward judgment, coordination of complex work, and relationship management are more durable than those doing purely routine admin.
- Why is cutting graduate hiring risky?
- Entry-level roles are the training ground that turns juniors into senior experts. If AI does the first-pass work juniors used to learn on, and firms stop hiring them, the pipeline that produces future senior people quietly breaks.