Have you heard the rumors lately? Company A is laying off 50 people and that's not all. Company B will be following suit with their own lay-offs. The rumor mill is alive and well. The trouble comes in knowing whether the rumors are accurate or totally off-base.

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	When thinking about your future, remember that accounting is one of the most stable careers you can pick.

Bonus Cuts and Layoffs in the Financial Sector

The market at the present time is a buyer’s market, and some financial services recruiters are saying that the choices for job seekers and current employees are not pretty. Bankers in New York are facing bonus reductions amid one of the worst market downturns in recent history. However, they may be the lucky ones. With more than 75,000 jobs having been cut and over $400 billion in credit losses incurred by the industry at large, Wall Street is taking a beating.

First-half revenues at Morgan Stanley are down by about 28%. In addition, funds that the company set aside for employee compensation packages dropped by the same percentage. Goldman Sachs sales for the first half of the year are down 22% with cuts to employee compensation as well. McKinsey and PwC have already issued their first set of pink slips this year. Belt-tightening of this sort is affecting their advisory, internal auditing, financial and administrative departments.

Optimism in the Accounting Field

Although many layoffs have occurred in the financial market, the Big Four firms--Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers--will not discontinue the hiring of interns and entry-level personnel. And The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that accounting professionals are among the most desired employees.

In a job market has many people concerned, accountants are still considered desirable for hiring.

Whether or not you are experiencing job security in your accounting job right now may very well depend on what part of the country you live in. Some regions are having almost no problems with layoffs at the moment, while other places are suffering.

In which areas should accountants be looking for employment? According to staffing firms, companies in New England and the South-Atlantic region of the United States are showing promise with large amounts of hires will continuing throughout 2008. The Big Four firms pay the most, of course, but salaries for accountants appear to be on the rise in general.

Conclusion

Although layoffs seem to be on the rise in the finance world at large, job openings and benefits seem to be steadily increasing in the accounting sector. Due to retirement of baby boomers, newly-certified accountants should have a strong foothold as they enter the job market.

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