“That said, it's not throughout the whole year, and we have to make sure that we have got the requisite welfare considerations for our staff.”

EY CEO Tony Johnson added: “We generally have a view on what our year looks like for recurring work. We staff our business appropriately for that workload. We do not staff our business to overwork people in any way.”

PwC managing partner of assurance Matt Graham agreed.

“By our records the average hours worked per week across the whole year – that includes the peaks, time off and all of that – would balance out at somewhere between 40 and 42 hours a week.”

'The new normal'

Audit industry experts disputed these claims.

“I don’t think it would be common to consistently have those weeks. In busy periods there’s expectations of 50-60 hours minimum a week, and that busy period is becoming the new normal,” said Sinead Hourigan, a director at professional services recruitment firm Robert Walters.

“When those periods balance out [with quiet periods], it’s okay. But when they become the new normal, you see people exit and it’s also a concern as people can only work at a higher level of stress and pressure for so long.”


James Guthrie wants firms held accountable for hours worked on audits. Louise Kennerley

Macquarie University accounting professor James Guthrie said big four auditors face intense time pressure and juniors often work long hours unsupervised. He criticised the firms for “their flawed organisational culture”.

“If they are working those hours [the big four] said, then why is there the burn and churn of staff at those firms that there is?” he said.

In his submission to the inquiry, Professor Guthrie called for all audit reports to have to list the time spent by each member on the job.

KPMG audit partner Eileen Hoggett acknowledged that “during peak busy times our staff generally do work beyond 7.5 hours a day”, saying “what is important is how we respond to the wellbeing needs of our people and work within our business operating model”.

Cultural change

The big four’s reassurances around audit work hours come as professional services firms face increased resistance over their historically long hours.

Junior auditors at Deloitte openly rebelled in 2019 over their conditions, after finding out graduate recruits would be coming in on bigger salaries.


Law firm Gilbert + Tobin also faced its second SafeWork investigation over workplace fatigue and long hours in November. Both they and King & Wood Mallesons were investigated by workplace regulators over junior staff hours last year.

Corporate firms are taking note that these hours are increasingly unacceptable, and students are increasingly prioritising culture and rejecting the idea long hours are unavoidable when selecting their workplaces.

“We’re facing a cohort of workers who are basing their success on their happiness rather than career,” Ms Hourigan said, noting that wellbeing is “definitely” coming through with junior auditors as a priority.

“That sense of being a whole human is also really important now, and you bring that whole human to work. People have really shed that idea that you shed your personal self at work, and you need time outside of work to see what that personal self looks like too.”

There are benefits of working at the big four for junior auditors, however.

“There’s not many jobs where, within 12 months of finishing uni, you’re sitting in a meeting with a financial controller who is listening to you,” Ms Hourigan said.

“And then with the social side, it feels like an extension of university. That flows onto a sort of groupthink, and people start to think they are all in this together, even regarding long hours.”

Minimum wage


Young professionals working consistently long hours has raised alarm bells with Fair Work over whether, on balance, employees end up hitting minimum wage for their industries.

From March, new Fair Work rules will require law firms to record all hours worked by graduate lawyers and paralegals and then reconcile them annually with salaries to ensure there has been no underpayment.

Professor Guthrie said the long hours worked by junior auditors raised similar concerns.

“If you look at the start-up salary, these grads are getting about $50,000, so working a 37.5 hour week they end up with about $25 an hour, which is the basic wage.

“If they’re working extra hours on that, do they put it in their timesheets and charge the client or are they unpaid for it? That then goes into this wage slavery thing that’s happening with major companies like Woolworths at the moment,” he said.

Ms Hourigan added: “These are challenges auditors have faced for time immemorial, about the hours they work and the pay regarding those hours.”