EY's global delivery centres accounted for all of its net hiring in fiscal 2026

Outside its global entities, EY's headcount was flat or slightly lower in the 2026 financial year. The entities added more than 10,000 people ^[3]. The whole firm gained nearly 10,000 ^[1], Business Insider reported from EY's annual results. Taken together, the rest of EY ended the year at about zero net growth or a small fall ^[16]. Within that, the Americas shrank by about 4,500, or 5% ^[4]. A cut of that size implies an Americas workforce of roughly 90,000 at the start of the year and about 85,500 at the end ^[17]. Every region outside the Americas and the delivery centres, combined, added fewer than about 4,500 ^[18].

EY describes the global entities as its global delivery services, a group that includes its offshoring centres ^[3]. The results do not say which Americas roles were cut, or whether their work moved to those centres. If some of it did, the transfer was the smaller part of the change. The centres added more than twice as many people as the Americas lost ^[19].

By service line, the hiring went to consulting. The division added 9,000 jobs ^[7], about nine-tenths of the firm's net gain ^[20], on revenue growth of 4.4% to $17.4 billion ^[8]. Tax grew faster, by 6% to $13.8 billion, and assurance by 3% to $18.9 billion ^[8]. Across the firm, revenue rose 4.7% to $57 billion ^[6] while headcount rose about 2.5% ^[21].

Accenture's shares have fallen 26.7% this year amid investor fears that AI could undermine the traditional consulting model ^[12]. At Deloitte, the technology and transformation arm slowed to 2.5% growth from 4.7% the year before ^[13]. EY's figures answer part of that fear. Its AI-related revenue rose almost 50%, after 30% the year before ^[5], under an "All-In" strategy on which the firm has spent billions ^[15]. Janet Truncale, EY's global chair and chief executive, said in a press release that the demand reflects businesses moving beyond experimentation and redesigning how they operate ^[9]. That demand added jobs. On the net figures, all of them were added in the delivery centres ^[16].

The trade-off for EY is between capacity in the delivery centres and the onshore bench where junior staff learn the work. AI is already pressing on time-based pricing and raising questions about how junior talent develops as more work is automated, Business Insider reported ^[10]. I think the cost of this year's choice arrives later. If the Americas cuts fell on junior grades, EY will have fewer onshore candidates for senior roles when that cohort would have come up for promotion. EY spent $448 million on training and development during the year ^[11], its first full year after merging 18 geographic regions into 10 ^[14].

One year of regional figures is a short record. For a leader setting next year's headcount plan, EY's results support treating AI demand as a question of where people work: the firm added staff overall ^[1] while one region took the cuts ^[4].