The U.S. faces a dire shortage of accountants

Macy’s won’t be reporting financial results for a few weeks, after the company said an accounting employee hid up to $154 million in expenses over several years. 

That news comes at a time when the accounting profession is struggling to attract new workers to its ranks. According to the American Institute of CPAs, the number of accounting graduates fell each year from 2016 to 2022, the last year for which it has data.

That’s led some accounting educators and associations to rethink the requirements for becoming a CPA.

Many accountants acknowledge their profession has a problem: There just aren’t enough young people interested in it. Part of that is due to accounting’s reputation, said Lexy Kessler, Mid-Atlantic leader for the accounting firm Aprio. 

“There’s an image that it’s all work and no play and no reward, that it’s just grinding through the hours,” Kessler said.

But, she said the work is rewarding.

“We don’t talk about the result of those hours,” Kessler said.

That can be time spent helping people navigate their taxes, or helping companies change hands. 

So, accountants need better marketing. But also, they could offer better starting salaries.

“We have to be competitive with other business majors like actuarial or finance or data analysts,” said Jennifer Wilson, a co-founder and partner of ConvergenceCoaching.

More money would help. So could changing the required credits that accounting majors need. 

In a lot of states, students currently have to take 150 credit hours — about 30 more than a typical bachelor’s degree, said Boz Bostrom, chair of the Minnesota Society of CPAs.

“It was thought that when this hour requirement was put in place, that it would elevate the profession, that there would be a lot more students pursuing master degrees or double majors or getting a lot more content in areas that were needed,” Bostrom said.

But instead, those extra hours have become a barrier. So, the Minnesota CPA group has proposed legislation to change that requirement to “120 hours of education, which is your standard bachelor’s degree, plus two years of experience,” Bostrom said.

Several other states have similar proposals on the table.

Meanwhile, Bostrom — who’s also an accounting professor — said his undergraduate students are in high demand. Some are getting job offers at the start of their sophomore year.

“So they are barely into their third semester of college, and they are receiving what will ultimately become a full time job offer for after graduation,” he said.

The work is there for the taking, as long as students are willing to sit through Intermediate Accounting.