tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/professional-services-6953/articlesProfessional services – The Conversation2020-06-28T20:09:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1393842020-06-28T20:09:22Z2020-06-28T20:09:22ZJobs deficit drives army of daily commuters out of Western Sydney<p><em>This is the first of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/western-sydney-jobs-deficit-88804">three articles</a> based on newly released <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/cws/policy">research</a> on the impacts of a lack of local jobs on the rapidly growing Western Sydney region.</em></p>
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<p>Western Sydney has a jobs problem. No other big regional economy in Australia fails in providing jobs for its residents more than this one. At the last census the Western Sydney jobs deficit – local jobs minus local workers – was <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/workers">222,000</a>. </p>
<p>If the region’s average rate of jobs growth for this century continues, this deficit will grow to 325,000 by 2036, an increase of over 30%. In our newly released <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/cws/policy">reports</a> on Western Sydney, we estimate an outflow from the region of 562,000 commuters as a consequence. Over 300,000 people already leave the region each day for work.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-people-cant-get-to-their-jobs-bring-the-jobs-to-the-people-57567">If the people can't get to their jobs, bring the jobs to the people</a>
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<p>Young professionals will have a growing presence in this long-distance, grinding, daily flow of workers. It’s an urban planning nightmare.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Centre for Western Sydney</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Fifty years ago, Western Sydney was one of Australia’s major industrial regions. In <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/2105.0">1971</a>, a belt of four local government areas – stretching from Bankstown, through Fairfield and Parramatta to Blacktown – was home to 104,000 manufacturing workers, more than one-third of the local workforce. By <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/workers">2016</a> the number of these workers had fallen by two-thirds to only 36,000, or 7.8% of local resident workers.</p>
<p>Yet, unlike many manufacturing regions across the developed world – where de-industrialisation has left <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/uneven-growth-tackling-city-decline">deep pools of displaced workers</a> – the region hasn’t ended up a rust belt. Western Sydney’s workforce has undergone a remarkable intergenerational reconstruction. </p>
<h2>Education fuels rise of professional class</h2>
<p>University education, in particular, is driving this. In <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/2105.0">1971</a>, only 3,900 degree-holders lived in the old industrial belt described above. By <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/Who-are-we">2016</a>, their number had surged to 198,000.</p>
<p>In the region as a whole, Western Sydney in 2016 was home to 353,000 adults with bachelor or higher degree qualifications. This was <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/Who-are-we">20.7%</a> of all people in the region aged 15 years plus, up from <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/Who-are-we">10.7%</a> in 2001. Clearly a transformative change in the region’s resident workers has been under way. </p>
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<span class="caption">Click on charts to enlarge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Centre for Western Sydney. Data: National Economics (NIEIR), 2018</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>At the last census, <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/occupations">20%</a> of Western Sydney’s employed residents were professionals, amounting to 203,000 workers. That’s more than any other occupational group in the region.</p>
<p>We can also see the transformation of the Western Sydney workforce through its take-up of jobs in what has become known as “knowledge-based business services”. This term covers three industry groups: professional, scientific and technical services; financial and insurance services; and information, media and telecommunications.</p>
<p>Here the emergence of the Western Sydney workforce as the real deal is undeniable. Our calculation is that, for 2018, Western Sydney was home to more knowledge-based business services workers (162,000) than Brisbane (159,000) – east-coast Australia’s wonder child – and significantly more than either Perth or Adelaide.</p>
<p>Such is the pace of upskilling in Western Sydney, the growth from 2013-2018 of residents holding jobs in knowledge-based business services outpaced the growth of these job holders in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth combined. </p>
<p>Indeed, our report finds an emerging divide in Australia’s metropolitan economies. Greater Sydney, including Western Sydney, and Greater Melbourne are hurtling ahead as advanced knowledge economies. The other metropolitan regions are lagging.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342595/original/file-20200618-41248-1sdt6do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Centre for Western Sydney. Data:National Economics (NIEIR), 2018</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>But 60% don’t work locally</h2>
<p>A key question, then, is whether there are enough jobs in Western Sydney for this growing number of professional and knowledge workers? The answer, clearly, is no. </p>
<p>At the 2016 census only <a href="https://profile.id.com.au/cws/journey-to-work">40.4%</a> of Western Sydney’s knowledge-based business services workers could find jobs in their home region. The remaining 59.6% are <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-people-cant-get-to-their-jobs-bring-the-jobs-to-the-people-57567">forced to commute to destinations beyond the region</a> to ply their 21st-century trades.</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-city-workers-average-commute-has-blown-out-to-66-minutes-a-day-how-does-yours-compare-120598">Australian city workers' average commute has blown out to 66 minutes a day. How does yours compare?</a>
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<p>Western Sydney’s dependence on a population-growth economy has limited the growth of jobs for knowledge workers. The region’s strong jobs growth in recent years has come overwhelmingly from two sources. </p>
<p>Construction, especially residential construction, has generated a lot of jobs. </p>
<p>The other source of jobs is the industry sectors that have grown in direct proportion to population growth. These include health care and social assistance, education and training, retailing, and accommodation and food services. The region’s population growth has fuelled growth in these population-serving sectors.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Centre for Western Sydney</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Vulnerable in the downturn</h2>
<p>Obviously, this jobs growth has been welcome and is important for the region’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-everyday-economy/">day-to-day economy</a>. The problem is that the Western Sydney economy has failed to produce significant job growth in other sectors. This has left the population-driven sectors, including construction, as the main source of growth. </p>
<p>In the construction sector, however, bust follows every boom. The sector <a href="https://www.masterbuilders.com.au/Resources/Industry-Forecasts">entered a significant downturn in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession are likely to rein in Western Sydney’s record population growth rates. This will hit jobs in the population-serving sectors, including further job losses in construction.</p>
<p>So workforce transformation in Western Sydney is running ahead of the economic transformation needed to ensure a supply of suitable jobs in the region. </p>
<p>Western Sydney has grown to become something more than a suburban appendage to the Sydney metropolitan area. Yet its 1 million workers lack the diverse jobs base reasonably expected of a large advanced urban economy. </p>
<p>Little wonder Western Sydney’s reputation as a planning nightmare is growing.</p>
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<p><em>The Centre for Western Sydney has released three reports on Western Sydney’s growing jobs deficit. You can read the reports <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/cws/policy">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip O'Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Education fuelled extraordinary growth in Western Sydney’s professional services workforce, but their jobs aren’t local. More than 300,000 commute to work outside the region.Phillip O'Neill, Director, Centre for Western Sydney, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845842017-09-28T19:05:22Z2017-09-28T19:05:22ZGoogling for a new dentist or therapist? Here’s how to look past the glowing testimonials<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187498/original/file-20170926-32444-njv05f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We use reviews and online testimonials when downloading an app or shopping on eBay. So, why not when choosing a new dentist?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=JdF7vJ43nvBdY4y81UK5hA-1-68">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve ever <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/182198">searched online</a> for a new dentist or other health professional, you’re certain to find websites with positive testimonials. Then there are the impressive “before and after” photos.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/adj.12571/full">our recently published research</a> shows not all health professionals are playing by the rules when they market themselves to the public.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dr-google-probably-isnt-the-worst-place-to-get-your-health-advice-73835">Dr Google probably isn't the worst place to get your health advice</a>
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<p>Our study of dentists shows almost three-quarters were illegally using testimonials on social media to market their practice and almost one in five were using pictures or text likely to create unrealistic expectations of the treatment.</p>
<p>So what are health professionals allowed to claim about the service they provide? And what advice should you rely on?</p>
<h2>What type of health professional are you looking for?</h2>
<p>How health professionals are allowed to market themselves depends mainly on what type of service they provide. The key is whether the practitioner is providing what’s known as a <a href="https://www.ahpra.gov.au/Publications/Advertising-resources/Legislation-guidelines.aspx">regulated health service</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ahpra.gov.au/National-Boards.aspx">These include</a>: doctors, dentists, pharmacists, psychologists, nurses and midwives, chiropractors, osteopaths, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, optometrists, podiatrists, practitioners of Chinese medicine, radiographers and sonographers, and people who provide specialist health services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.</p>
<p>So, if you’re looking for one of these, the following advertising <a href="http://www.ahpra.gov.au/About-AHPRA/What-We-Do/Legislation.aspx">is illegal</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>false, misleading or deceptive advertising or advertising that’s likely to be misleading or deceptive</li>
<li>advertising that offers a gift, discount or other inducements, unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer</li>
<li>using testimonials or reported testimonials</li>
<li>advertising that creates an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment, and</li>
<li>advertising that directly or indirectly encourages the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services.</li>
</ul>
<p>These rules apply to all forms of advertising across different media, including social media.</p>
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<span class="caption">Speech pathologists are allowed to include testimonials and reviews to promote themselves, but doctors and pharmacists aren’t.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=JdF7vJ43nvBdY4y81UK5hA-1-68">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>But there are a whole range of health professionals who aren’t counted as providing a regulated health service. These include optical dispensers, speech and language pathologists, and massage therapists.</p>
<p>So, if you read great testimonials about these, while persuasive, they’re unlikely to be illegal under health-care law. However, they would still be bound by <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/misleading-claims-advertising/false-or-misleading-claims">Australian Consumer Law</a>, which prevents misleading or deceptive advertising.</p>
<h2>How about if I leave an online review?</h2>
<p>While the law prohibits providers of a regulated health service from providing testimonials, there’s nothing stopping you from leaving a review on Google or on your own social media page.</p>
<p>But if you leave a review on a doctor or dentist’s practice page or social media account, it’s the health professional who will be breaching the rules; the <a href="https://www.ahpra.gov.au/">regulator</a> expects health professionals to manage the content of their pages.</p>
<p>You would think that most testimonial sections on social media would be disabled, however, this isn’t what our <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/adj.12571/full">research showed</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-your-doctor-might-google-you-74746">Yes, your doctor might Google you</a>
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<p>For bad reviews, you could potentially be sued for <a href="http://www.lawhandbook.org.au/11_02_01_what_is_defamation/">defamation</a> if your post harms the health professional’s reputation. This is an entirely separate section of law, with many caveats, so please take care. A recent case involved a surgeon who <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-surgeon-munjed-al-muderis-awarded-480k-over-online-defamation-by-patient-20170608-gwn17a.html">successfully sued a patient for A$480,000</a> after he made defamatory claims online.</p>
<h2>So, what’s the big deal?</h2>
<p>Testimonials and reviews are very common in other aspects of our daily lives. Just think about the last time you downloaded an app, used eBay or booked a holiday online. But what makes health-care so special?</p>
<p>Testimonials and reviews can potentially mislead. For instance, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27279455">one study</a> that looked at YouTube testimonials about dental implants found many testimonials overplayed the positives (better looking and improved function) and downplayed the negatives of treatment (pain relief needed, a temporary solution).</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-split-the-good-from-the-bad-in-online-reviews-and-ratings-74986">How to split the good from the bad in online reviews and ratings</a>
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<p>Testimonials and reviews might not even be true. Google requires no proof you have visited a health professional before you leave a non-verified review. And a quick search on Google itself reveals many businesses offering to sell positive Google reviews.</p>
<p>Then there are the potentially serious health consequences of choosing the wrong health professional (or the wrong therapy) after reading testimonials and reviews. For instance, there’s nothing to prevent medical graduates with little or no postgraduate training <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/cosmetic-surgery-rogue-operators-health-minister-calls-for-investigation/news-story/a5297252f77fd4936cfe358b7140c663">using the title “cosmetic surgeon”</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/call-yourself-a-cosmetic-surgeon-new-guidelines-fix-only-half-the-problem-59078">Call yourself a cosmetic surgeon? New guidelines fix only half the problem</a>
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<p>Misleading claims or titles might also affect your ability to consent to treatment; if you don’t have the right information, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/adj.12428/full">how can you make an informed decision</a>?</p>
<h2>Where does this leave me?</h2>
<p>There is no one-stop resource for patients to access health advertising that is completely free from bias. So, take claims relating to health professionals with a pinch of salt, including testimonials.</p>
<p>While some people think advertising restrictions stifle public discussion, they’re in place to protect you.</p>
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<p><em>Update: this article originally stated acupuncturists aren’t counted as providing a regulated health service.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Holden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many of the online testimonials you might read for dentists and other health professional can not only mislead, they can be illegal.Alexander Holden, Lecturer in Dental Ethics, Law and Professionalism, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/801412017-07-05T02:25:44Z2017-07-05T02:25:44ZThree charts on: the changing face of Australian union members<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176379/original/file-20170630-8242-3r0eda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite public perception, figures indicate that white collar workers are more likely to be a member of a union than people working in traditionally blue collar professions. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What comes to mind when I say union member? Perhaps it conjures up a blue collar construction or factory worker. Well data on unions shows it’s more likely to be a lawyer or teacher.</p>
<p>Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicates an increase in the number of professionals hold a union ticket in today’s Australia. The number of union members who listed their occupation as “manager” (89,900) or “professional” (543,300) easily exceeded the combined number of those who recorded their calling as a trade or technical worker (195,200), a sales worker (89,800), a machinery operator or driver (138,600) or a labourer (146,800). </p>
<p>So the image that many of us have of a union member – a militant building worker who belongs to the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union – is a misnomer. In fact, despite the CFMEU’s prominence in the media, union density in the construction industry stands at only 9.4%. </p>
<p>In the private sector, union density now stands at 10.1%. In the public sector, the percentage of workers in this domain holding a union ticket falling by 4.9 percentage points to 38.5% between 2013 and 2016.</p>
<h2>A history of change</h2>
<p>Many reasons have been put forward to explain the decline in Australian unionism – enterprise bargaining, laws unfriendly to unions, managerial hostility and youth indifference. However it’s clear that union decline has broadly tracked the declining share of jobs held by blue-collar workers.</p>
<p>Union decline can be broken into three broad periods. Between 1954 and 1976, declining union density moved in lock-step with the blue-collar working class’s declining workforce share. </p>
<p>Between 1971 and 1996, union decline occurred at a slower pace than the fall in the blue-collar share of the workforce, as unions had success in recruiting white-collar workers and professionals. This more than offset declines in blue-collar membership. </p>
<p>From 1996 onwards, unions became increasingly dominated by professionals as blue-collar membership collapsed.</p>
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<p>Today, union members can be categorised into three groups: </p>
<p>1) Managers and professionals
2) Blue-collar workers engaged in trade work, labouring, machinery operation and driving
3) Unskilled and semi-skilled workers engaged in sales, clerical work and community and personal service. </p>
<p>As blue-collar unionists became increasingly rare figures within the ranks of the trade unions, so it was that union membership became increasingly dominated by managers and professionals. </p>
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<p>In many ways the increasing domination of union membership by professionals should not surprise us. Since 1986, the industries largely staffed by professionals and semi-professionals (such as media and information systems, finance, health, education and education) have provided more jobs than traditional blue-collar industries.</p>
<p>The problem for unions is that as the workforce has changed, they have got the worst of both worlds. Since 1996, union density has clearly fallen more sharply than the blue-collar share of the workforce. However, unions have not been able to win over enough professionals to offset the loss of blue-collar unionists.</p>
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<h2>Missing the mark</h2>
<p>Part of the problem in securing new members for unions is that professional recruitment is largely confined to one cohort: those employed in publicly-funded or regulated industries, such as education and health. In these areas, unions still represent around a third of the workforce.</p>
<p>By contrast, in areas of professional employment characterised by private-ownership and market-competition (i.e. media, finance, professional services) unions perform poorly. In finance and insurance, union density stands at 9.7%. In professional and scientific services – an area that employed more than a million in 2016 – only 2% of the workforce has a union ticket.</p>
<p>This data reveals union membership is increasingly confined to one area of the economy – professional and semi-professional employment in publicly-funded and regulated areas. Leaving the rest of the workforce behind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bradley Bowden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Union membership continues to fall, particularly within industries that traditionally claim a strong union heritage.Bradley Bowden, Professor, Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/174142013-09-18T20:41:38Z2013-09-18T20:41:38ZDespite revenue hiccups, the future remains bright for the Big Four accounting firms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30271/original/t5jxrgjp-1377827189.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Opportunities in Asia and an increased focus on management consulting could see the Big Four bounce back from revenue slump</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">yago1 via Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The revenue of Australia’s Big Four accounting firms has come under pressure as demand for traditional services such as auditing weakens. But a move into strategic consulting and the potential for more wide-ranging ties with Asian clients should mean the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-deloitte-earnings-idUSBRE88I0M720120919">slippage is short-lived</a>.</p>
<p>The Big Four – Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Ernst & Young – are multidisciplinary professional service firms that offer a range of services including accounting, auditing, tax, business advisory and management consulting. This vertical integration allows them to be a “one-stop shop” for business clients.</p>
<p>The Big Four handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies, as well as many private companies, making auditing their largest source of revenue. Their second biggest revenue segment is advisory services, including advice on mergers and acquisitions. </p>
<p>However, according to IBISWorld, the Big Four’s traditional revenue streams – accounting, audit and tax – are under pressure as demand for these services in Australia slows. </p>
<p>That translated into a slight deterioration in their recent earnings reports. KPMG’s announcement of a 0.6% fall in revenue means all of the Big Four have now reported revenue declines of between 0.5 to 1% in their Australian practices, with resulting job cuts.</p>
<p>There are two main drivers for the slowdown in Australia. The first is internal. Demand from the Big Four’s main source of clients, the financial services sector, has remained weak. According to IBISWorld, over the past five years revenue from financial service firms has represented a declining proportion of accounting industry revenue. </p>
<p>As financial businesses have become increasingly risk-averse, and merger and acquisition activity has remained weak, demand for the Big Four’s traditional accounting services has fallen.</p>
<p>At the same time, some of the larger mid-tier accounting firms have begun vying for the attention of the Big Four’s small to mid-cap listed audit clients, with this competition putting downward pressure on prices.</p>
<p>The second driver is external. The standardisation of accounting rules and ever-improving technology has also intensified downward price pressure. One response by the Big Four has been to outsource routine, labour-intensive processes to low-cost nations such as India.</p>
<p>Still, IBISWorld predicts a quick recovery for the Big Four in Australia, mainly because of strong growth in advisory services. In addition, the Big Four are well positioned to profit from their expansion into management consulting services. Together, these will make them less dependent on the more volatile market for accounting and auditing services. </p>
<p>Management consulting has been a source of revenue and profit growth for the accounting firms since the 1960s, when they started to invest in this area. Consulting hit a road bump in 2002, after Enron’s bankruptcy and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen prompted the US to target potential conflicts of interest by restricting the provision of non-audit services to audit clients.</p>
<p>KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers sold their consulting arms as a result and Deloitte put its up for sale (Ernst & Young had sold its consulting business two years earlier). </p>
<p>However, the move away from consulting was short-lived. According to IBISWorld, today Deloitte’s share of the Australian consulting market is 6%, with PwC at 5.8% and KPMG at 4.6%. This makes them, after Accenture, the largest providers of consulting services here, followed by the pure strategy houses and a very long tail of smaller firms. </p>
<p>This year Deloitte acquired Monitor, one of the top “strategy consulting” firms, allowing it to move into a very lucrative, high-margin market that until now has been almost entirely the domain of McKinsey, BCG and Bain. Strategy consulting focuses on specific strategic issues that businesses face, and has always commanded higher margins than other types of consulting, such as operations, human resources or IT consulting.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the other firms in the Big Four continue to expand their management consulting divisions. <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21563726">Consulting has been growing much faster than audit</a> for all four firms in recent years. </p>
<p>Asia also presents opportunities for growth. Traditionally, accounting firms have internationalised by following their clients overseas and opening local offices. In China, for example, the Big Four’s clients are mainly large companies with overseas exposure that want to use an internationally recognised auditor as an assurance to global investors. (Just this week, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd has announced its global revenues have risen by 8.6% to US$31.3 billion, helped by 16.3% revenue growth in Asia Pacific.)</p>
<p>The recent adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in China provides further opportunities for the Big Four to grow their operations there.</p>
<p>However, competition from local accounting practices is increasing. The big names have been losing market share because their focus has been, so far, on international clients rather than fast-growing Chinese companies on their home soil. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cd74664e-9797-11e2-97e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dDcwjy5Q">According to the Financial Times</a>, the Big Four’s share of business among the top 100 Chinese firms peaked at 55% in 2007 and had slipped to 36% by 2011. </p>
<p>What’s more, some of these local accounting practices are now following their Chinese clients overseas, which could mean increased competition for the Big Four in their established markets. Leading Chinese accounting firm ShineWing, for example, has established an office in Australia in alliance with local accounting network Hall Chadwick. </p>
<p>Still, a new requirement that the Big Four increase the number of mainland Chinese partners at the top of their businesses might mean they become more attractive to Chinese companies in the medium term. As a result, they could continue to profit from the growth of the Chinese market. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalia Nikolova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The revenue of Australia’s Big Four accounting firms has come under pressure as demand for traditional services such as auditing weakens. But a move into strategic consulting and the potential for more…Natalia Nikolova, Senior Lecturer in Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.