insight magazine

CEO Outlook | Fall 2024

Navigating the Cliffs Ahead

As the college-age population shrinks, and baby boomers retire, the accounting profession has some major demographic cliffs to traverse as it seeks the talent it needs.
Geoffrey Brown, CAE President and CEO, Illinois CPA Society


Within the last few months, the accounting profession has received the National Pipeline Advisory Group’s (NPAG’s) report, along with recommendations from other stakeholders, on how to address the profession’s workforce issues. Armed with all this new data and insight, the hope is that we can begin outlining a roadmap for the future and martial the necessary resources to bring about meaningful change, i.e., attracting more students and young professionals to the accounting profession (and hopefully shepherding them toward the CPA credential).

But before we can turn our attention toward execution, we need to understand what’s occurring outside the profession that’s impacting what’s happening inside it now and for the foreseeable future.

I’ll preface with this: The environmental factors affecting the workforce are challenging but not insurmountable. Here’s what we’re contending with.

A demographic cliff caused by approximately 17 years of declining birth rates in the United States is setting us up for a deficit of young people attending colleges and universities. The number of high school graduates is set to peak around 2025-2026, which will lead to a shrinking college-age population that’s projected to last deep into the next decade.

Now, also consider that around 11,000 baby boomers turn 65 each day, with some 4.1 million Americans reaching that age this year alone. Since many organizations in this profession have mandatory retirement ages of 65 or 66, we’re poised to lose valuable, experienced professionals in the coming years, which will put additional strain on the field. Given the profession’s aging workforce, it’s safe to say that we’re also facing a retirement cliff.

Further, even the traditional model of students attending four-year colleges or universities and entering the workforce is shifting before our eyes. What this all means is that we can’t keep plugging away with dated approaches to raising awareness of the profession and acquiring talent. In my opinion, the profession needs to reconsider the value it provides if it wants to attract the next generation of talent—talent that has different attitudes, interests, and needs, along with other career opportunities to consider.

So, what do we do to capture the interest of the next generation of talent we desperately need? The NPAG’s recommendations are organized into six themes that offer a preliminary roadmap for navigating the workforce challenges and corresponding environmental factors above, among others. Two important themes are telling a more compelling story about accounting careers and enhancing the employee experience by evolving business models and cultures.

I think many stakeholders will naturally gravitate toward these areas as places where they can contribute their time and talents to make change. Modernizing business models, cultures, and the related employee experience are in the profession’s best interest. However, we must do more than just talk about telling a better story. We must also demonstrate that the story is better, which means changing the work experience for our professionals. And while nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future, we should still take the necessary steps to reimagine how we cultivate and steward the next generation of accounting and finance professionals. As a convener, I assure you the Illinois CPA Society is committed to supporting these efforts however we can.

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