When progress comes at the price of human ambition

One of the Big Four audit firms quietly abandons pledge to hire 100,000 employees worldwide by mid-2026 amid rise of artificial intelligence

PwC’s decision to abandon its promise to hire 100,000 new employees by 2026, while promoting artificial intelligence as a miracle solution for productivity, is a faithful portrait of a capitalism that, once again, sacrifices workers in the name of partner profitability. The announcement — made in a “discreet” way, without fanfare — symbolizes not only a strategic inflection by one of the largest consultancies on the planet, but a profound ethical and structural crisis of the entire global corporate model.

In 2021, amid post-pandemic optimism, PwC promised expansion, modernization and opportunities. There was talk of “investing in people”, of “training talents”, of “training leaders of the future”. Four years later, the reality is quite different: cuts of 5,600 jobs in just one year, hiring targets shelved and the technology discourse used as a justification to reduce costs and preserve partners’ profits.

The 2025 annual report exposes, behind the neutral and technical language, the true logic of contemporary capital: when revenues slow down — in this case, a timid growth of 2.7%, lower than that of competitors Deloitte and EY —, the first to pay the bill are the workers. Not the millionaire executives, nor the partners who continue to receive generous dividends, but the ordinary employees, who see their jobs evaporate under the pretext of “optimization” and “efficiency”.

The global president of PwC, Mohamed Kande, tried to sweeten the pill: “We continue to hire,” he said, while praising the training of 315,000 employees in AI tools. But what does “AI upskill” mean when thousands are laid off and human labor is treated as obsolete? Technology, which could be an instrument of liberation and well-being, is transformed into a tool of exclusion — a smokescreen to justify layoffs and reinforce the concentration of income at the top.

The replacement of people by algorithms is not inevitable; it is a political choice. Choice made by corporations that see artificial intelligence not as a means to improve workers’ lives, but as an opportunity to increase profit margins, eliminate costs and reduce union opposition. PwC is not “adapting to the future”, as it tries to sell, but reinforcing the old model: fewer people, more profit, more control.

The irony is that this downturn occurs in the midst of an unprecedented crisis of credibility. PwC faces serious scandals in China and Australia — from the leak of confidential information from government consultancies to complacent audits that masked corporate fraud, as in the case of Evergrande. These episodes reveal the moral bankruptcy of a company that preaches “quality” and “ethics”, but practices omission and collusion when money matters.

PwC’s response to these scandals was to “review its client portfolio” and abandon operations in 13 countries, the majority in Africa. Once again, the decision is presented as “risk management”. In practice, it is the withdrawal of a global giant from regions considered less profitable, leaving emerging economies even more vulnerable to the logic of dependence and disinvestment.

The argument that PwC is just “following the market” is misleading. The Big Four group — which also includes Deloitte, EY and KPMG — is more than a reflection of the economy: it is one of its architects. These companies audit governments, guide tax reforms, advise privatizations and shape public policies according to corporate interests. When PwC cuts jobs and hides profits, the impact isn’t just internal — it’s systemic.

The lack of transparency about net profit in the last annual report is a revealing detail. For the first time since the 2010 financial crisis, PwC has reduced its staff, but omitted how much profit it made during the period. If revenue growth was modest, shareholder dividends certainly were not. This opacity is not accidental: it is the convenient silence of those who prefer that society not see the abyss between the discourse of “digital transformation” and the reality of modern exploitation.

In the United States, the company cut 1,500 positions; in the Middle East, another 1,500. In the United Kingdom, it drastically reduced the hiring of recent graduates. And, in Asia, where it faced scandals and economic downturn, it saw revenue fall 4.1%. Still, PwC insists it is “focused on quality” — an empty word when the priority is pleasing shareholders.

What is observed is the collapse of the myth of corporate meritocracy. Individual performance, effort or “AI training” don’t matter: the fate of the worker is in the hands of a system that sees them as a disposable cost. The same company that in 2021 promised a future of inclusion is now leading a global restructuring to preserve margins in times of “modest” growth. It is platform capitalism disguised as innovation.

The left needs to denounce this movement not just as a business crisis, but as a class issue. The advancement of artificial intelligence under the command of large corporations is not a neutral technological advance; It is a political project to concentrate power and weaken work. PwC is just one example — emblematic, but not isolated — of how the “knowledge economy” has become an inequality machine.

While global consultancies celebrate the “efficiency of AI”, millions of workers lose jobs, and the planet accumulates crises upon crises: climate, economic, moral. Perhaps the real lesson from the PwC case is this: it’s not technology that threatens work — it’s capitalism. And as long as companies continue to confuse innovation with quick profits, every promise of “progress” will continue to sound like what it is — a big corporate lie wrapped in source code and transformation rhetoric.