Q: Big4 - Yearly salary increment

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Nope don’t think they are generous.
It happens in big 4 audit also. The people born before 2000 tank lor

Those 40 years want to tank meh

They got elderly parents to take care

They got young kids to take care

Obviously, this industry need young blood and young people to go out fight and do the vouching work

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Maybe new hires should check if the $4.1k comes with a bonus. How do you think they are going to fund the increase?

1) Reduce bonuses (existing bonuses are on average 1 month).
2) Hire fewer staff but increase the average workload per staff.

Without the bonus, the increase compared to last time is only $200-300 more on average. The increase should be focused on matching the average market pay ($4.3k) for local fresh graduates, not because it's compensation for the higher workload.

Now the existing situation is:

- Many auditors (usually local seniors) want to exit, but the market is not good or opportunities are less desirable compared to the past. The workload has also increased for the same rank over the years.

- Competition with foreign talents makes it more difficult to command higher pay. To others, it's 20k+ RM, which can afford a luxurious lifestyle in Malaysia, but here in SGD, you can at most eat cai fan and afford HDB.

- There's quite a negative perception of ex-auditors. I don’t know if it’s because of the mass hiring of foreigners, toxic culture, or something else. potentially making it more difficult to get hired for commercial roles.

- Existing local associates (especially those in their second year) will start to put in less effort in their jobs because they don’t intend to stay long. To cut losses, most exit even before reaching senior. Fresh graduate jobs are paying $4.5k at banks, and CA has no relevance in banking.

- On the topic of CA, the paper seems to carry less value now with the many exemptions. Is the 3 year grind in the company worth it when recruiters seem to have less preference for auditors nowadays?

- For work life balance, the current assoc batch prefers not working on weekends and public holidays. If you want to define the extent of over-working, I think you can refer to the numerous posts by auditors mentioning that they want to complain to MOM. But unfortunately, we are blue-collar in disguise and are not covered under the MOM Act.

Yeah. The issues are low pay, high turnover, competition with foreign talent, declining CA relevance, poor work-life balance, and no legal protections for auditors in Singapore.

I think the industry leaders have to address them by improving pay, ensuring fair bonuses, enhancing work-life balance, strengthening CA relevance, and advocating for legal protections.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What happens if there are no local graduates want to join the audit industry?

Then this "Never mind, limpeh throw money at your face lor!!" theory will need to be adopted right?

If nobody wants to join, then u have to increase the $4.1K to $6K for A1 leh

"Limpeh" put $6K, I don't believe you all fresh graduates don't want work!!

Sure will have taker right?

Unless u say all these local uni graduates all come from well-to-do family and their family don't need them to work?

I think you might have overlooked the other hires, but you could observe from your firm's situation.

In a forum post, someone mentioned starting work in the early 2000s, with both sinkie and jhk hires. Over time, sinkies became less willing to put in long hours, leading to mostly jhk fresh grads now. (It somehow halted the progression toward a more balanced work-life balance culture)

there are plenty of other foreign graduates who would gladly take on the role for the same pay. the company can still run smoothly without solely relying on fresh graduates from local universities. So the theory doesn’t work

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Maybe new hires should check if the $4.1k comes with a bonus. How do you think they are going to fund the increase?

1) Reduce bonuses (existing bonuses are on average 1 month).
2) Hire fewer staff but increase the average workload per staff.

Without the bonus, the increase compared to last time is only $200-300 more on average. The increase should be focused on matching the average market pay ($4.3k) for local fresh graduates, not because it's compensation for the higher workload.

Now the existing situation is:

- Many auditors (usually local seniors) want to exit, but the market is not good or opportunities are less desirable compared to the past. The workload has also increased for the same rank over the years.

- Competition with foreign talents makes it more difficult to command higher pay. To others, it's 20k+ RM, which can afford a luxurious lifestyle in Malaysia, but here in SGD, you can at most eat cai fan and afford HDB.

- There's quite a negative perception of ex-auditors. I don’t know if it’s because of the mass hiring of foreigners, toxic culture, or something else. potentially making it more difficult to get hired for commercial roles.

- Existing local associates (especially those in their second year) will start to put in less effort in their jobs because they don’t intend to stay long. To cut losses, most exit even before reaching senior. Fresh graduate jobs are paying $4.5k at banks, and CA has no relevance in banking.

- On the topic of CA, the paper seems to carry less value now with the many exemptions. Is the 3 year grind in the company worth it when recruiters seem to have less preference for auditors nowadays?

- For work life balance, the current assoc batch prefers not working on weekends and public holidays. If you want to define the extent of over-working, I think you can refer to the numerous posts by auditors mentioning that they want to complain to MOM. But unfortunately, we are blue collar in disguise and are not covered under the MOM Act.

You have pointed out the problems in this industry

What solutions you have?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I think you might have overlooked the other hires, but you could observe from your firm's situation.

In a forum post, someone mentioned starting work in the early 2000s, with both sinkie and jhk hires. Over time, sinkies became less willing to put in long hours, leading to mostly jhk fresh grads now. (It somehow halted the progression toward a more balanced work-life balance culture)

there are plenty of other foreign graduates who would gladly take on the role for the same pay. the company can still run smoothly without solely relying on fresh graduates from local universities. So the theory doesn’t work

It's not just about overlooking other candidates.

Local university graduates are hesitant to join the audit industry, possibly in protest against long hours and poor work-life balance.

What these graduates desire is for employers to show humility toward them.

However, the Big4 firms continue to display arrogance. They believe that by simply "throwing money" and increasing the salary for A1 positions, they can solve this deep-seated problem. If hiring foreigners can resolve the issue, they should go ahead and hire all foreigners.

Even foreigners from Kuala Lumpur are complaining about the lack of manpower and burnout. Even they need support from local university graduates.

Nevertheless, local university graduates have numerous opportunities everywhere.

guys who received the updated pay offer, make sure to update us on whether there's bonus. i was chatting with a partner (i don't work in big 4 anymore, just an acquaintance) who hinted that the pay increase is taken from the bonus similar to the previous round to cope with EP issue.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

guys who received the updated pay offer, make sure to update us on whether there's bonus. i was chatting with a partner (i don't work in big 4 anymore, just an acquaintance) who hinted that the pay increase is taken from the bonus similar to the previous round to cope with EP issue.

It seems like the post that mentioned the increment aligning with the 1st September EP renewal is true. guess the money thrown is not even for the local graduates.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

guys who received the updated pay offer, make sure to update us on whether there's bonus. i was chatting with a partner (i don't work in big 4 anymore, just an acquaintance) who hinted that the pay increase is taken from the bonus similar to the previous round to cope with EP issue.

For PwC like that how? They don't even give bonus to A1s currently

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It seems like the post that mentioned the increment aligning with the 1st September EP renewal is true. guess the money thrown is not even for the local graduates.

Then that's kinda ass

Originally Posted by Unregistered

guys who received the updated pay offer, make sure to update us on whether there's bonus. i was chatting with a partner (i don't work in big 4 anymore, just an acquaintance) who hinted that the pay increase is taken from the bonus similar to the previous round to cope with EP issue.

These partners are really asshole.

Ask them to do the vouching work themselves then.