Faced with a chronic shortage of qualified workers, some accounting firms are turning work away.  Others are referring clients to competitors, and some are just saying "no."  Much of the avalanche of audit work is due to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.  Once clients have lived through the first cycle of compliance and associated changes are built into normal business practices, the work load is expected to become more manageable next year.

Nonetheless, the wave of retiring baby boomers, coupled with slower hiring of entry-level employees over the past few years, has left a vacuum of mid- and senior-level accounting professionals nationwide.  Bay Area accounting firm executives claim they face additional challenges due to the smaller talent pool in the past few years and employees being in high demand by other sectors also on a hiring spree.

Some accounting firms are taking extraordinary measures to boost employment and morale.  For example, Hemming Morse increased vacation time to 3 weeks per year and brings in Masseuses every Friday!  The firm also pays overtime, end-of-the-year cash bonuses and shares profits with each of its 96 employees.

Armanino McKenna LLP in San Ramon offers managers low-rate Home loans of up to $50,000, paid back over 7 years.

PricewaterhouseCoopers promotes work-life balance, saying 40% of its 2,000 Bay Area employees take advantage of its flex schedule.  PWC similarly increased parental leave from 5 days to 15, now allows parents up to 20 days to care for a child, and pays for breast pumps for the wives of male employees.

Deloitte & Touche, PWC, KPMG and Ernst & Young, along with regional firms, offer cash bonuses of up to $10,000 to employees for referring someone who gets hired.  Some firms, such as Deloitte, also have drawings for a car.