City giants replace graduate jobs with AI

The 'Big Four' accountants are cutting jobs and scaling back graduate recruitment programmes as they turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to do entry-level work.
The professional services giants Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC have cut hundreds of roles over the past two years as they seek to keep up £1m payouts to partners in the face of a downturn in the consulting market.
The cutbacks mean they will take on hundreds fewer school leavers and university graduates compared with in 2023, with AI able to do some of the administrative tasks they would have been given.
KPMG, which is the smallest of the big four firms, has made the sharpest cuts so far. It has cut its recruitment scheme by 29pc, from 1,399 in 2023 to just 942 last year. It expects to hire around 1,000 graduates and school leavers this year.
Deloitte has meanwhile cut its own graduate cohort by 18pc, from 1,700 in 2023 to 1,400 last year. The firm expects to keep recruitment flat this year.
EY also trimmed its graduate hiring by 11pc from 1,800 in 2023 to 1,600 in 2024, while PwC cut its entry-level recruitment scheme by 6pc over the same period from 1,600 in 2023 to 1,500 last year.
Data from jobs board Indeed show that UK accountancy firms have posted 44pc fewer adverts for graduate jobs this year compared with in 2023, versus a 33pc decline in adverts for all graduate jobs and a 20pc slump in all job listings generally.

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Leaving oil and gas in the ground was always a pipe dream

Just call me Mystic Mac. As I forecast in this space earlier this month, the UK has finally opened the door to the development of the Rosebank oilfield off Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen. Ed Miliband, the net zero secretary, famously said that drilling in these two modest reserves would constitute 'climate vandalism'. Well, it looks like he will shortly have to get his spray paint out and daub 'Just Start Oil' on the door of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. To be honest, it didn't take supernatural foresight to predict that these totemic fields would ultimately get the go-ahead. They were given licences by the last government. Production was halted only by a bizarre judgment by the Court of Session in Edinburgh. In January Lord Ericht ruled in favour of the climate activists, Uplift and Greenpeace, who argued that the UK government hadn't carried out a full environmental impact assessment of the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels downstream. It had merely provided an assessment of the carbon dioxide from the process of extracting it and piping it ashore. New methods of extraction can and are producing significant reductions in producer emissions. But the UK government had not formally included an assessment of the downstream emissions since it was deemed self-evident that burning hydrocarbons produces greenhouse gases. What did the court expect? That it would be used to oil bicycle chains and fill balloons? Shell says that Jackdaw alone would produce enough gas to heat 1.4 million households. The environmental and health impact on those households of withdrawing their main source of heating was not, of course, considered in this pettifogging ruling — because that would have required an ounce of common sense. Nor did the court recognise that the gas, which would have to be imported to fuel those domestic boilers if Jackdaw were stoppered, might produce more emissions than using our domestic supply. Yet it should be patently obvious that shipping liquefied natural gas 3,000 miles from America by tanker is more profligate in emissions than using what's produced by extraction from our backyard. The court was tacitly endorsing the perverse logic of the Scottish government and lobbyists such as Greenpeace that, in some morally inexplicable way, imported oil and gas is good while ours is bad. But Sir Keir Starmer was never going to start shutting down an industry that generates about £25 billion a year, according to Offshore Energy UK, and supports around 100,000 jobs. Pointlessly sacrificing these new fields would only have indicated to the few companies still operating in the region that the government is hell bent on closing down the North Sea prematurely. The new rules announced last week by Michael Shanks, the energy minister, will allow further development of the Cambo and Clair fields, expansion of which had also been placed on hold following the January court ruling. This whole episode served only to showcase the absurdity of what is being called the managerial 'lanyard class's' thinking about energy. The Treasury is not stupid and was never going to endorse an exercise in performative self-harm. Nor was No 10. 'Keeping it in the ground', as Patrick Harvie used to advocate, was not what Labour meant by a rational and measured transition to renewable energy. The UK depends on oil and gas for 75 per cent of its energy usage. So the UK government has rejigged the approval process to include a statement of the bleedin' obvious — viz, that burning oil and gas produces emissions. Industry sources believe, rightly, that by submitting this new and more politically correct prospectus, they will be able to go ahead. That is, if firms like Equinor haven't given up in disgust. They're already being hit by a 78 per cent profits tax on North Sea oil, which makes you wonder why they bother. 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Daily Mail​

an hour ago

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Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's wedding planners defend couple's lavish nuptials as Venice locals stage protests

The planners behind Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez 's luxurious Venetian wedding have defended the billionaire couple amid fierce backlash from the Italian city's locals. After a two-year-long engagement, Bezos and Sanchez are set to tie the knot on June 27 - but the ceremony is just one part of their extravagant celebrity-laden celebration. News of the lavish wedding has sparked outrage among Venice's residents, who have been protesting against the Amazon founder's arrival. Passionate signs reading 'No space for Bezos' and 'Veniceland: A playground fit for an oligarch' have been plastered across Venice, sharing the sentiment that citizens want Bezos and Sanchez to take their multimillion-dollar wedding elsewhere. Demonstrators have also been plotting to clog up streets and canals to throw off the wedding's events and hinder the roughly 200 guests from getting around the city. 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Demonstrators (pictured) have also been plotting to clog up streets and canals to throw off the wedding's events and hinder the roughly 200 guests from getting around the city Founded by Prince Antonio Licata di Baucina and Count Riccardo Lanza, the high-end wedding planning company has worked with stars including George and Amal Clooney, and Salma Hayek and François-Henri Pinault. With a celebrity portfolio, the Bezos-Sanchez matrimony - costing roughly $15 to $20 million - is sure to be nothing less than show-stopping. An Italian source previously revealed to they will say 'I do' on the island of San Giorgio, home to the famous Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, a 16th century Benedictine church. Bezos' $500 million superyacht, Koru, is to be docked on the island's harbor. The island itself will not be open to the public. The ceremony is just one of three events - all at different locations. 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an hour ago

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How the UK is testing a radical plan to refreeze the Arctic

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