PwC Was Thoughtful Enough to Wait Until After Hurricane Milton to Lay Off Tampa Employees

In September, Wall Street Journal was first to report that PwC planned to cut 1800 people — about 2.5% of the workforce — in October. As prophesied, layoffs began the week of October 7th.

On October 5, the tropical storm soon-to-be-called Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico and by Monday, October 7 became a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 180 mph. Milton would go on to earn the distinction of being the second-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico.

On October 6, 35 counties across the State of Florida were under a state of emergency; by the following day, that number had grown to 51. Ahead of Milton’s expected landfall on Wednesday or Thursday of that week, more than a dozen counties in and around Tampa issued mandatory evacuation orders for residents. “Failure to adequately shelter may result in serious injury or loss of life,” wrote National Hurricane Center forecasters in a report issued on October 8. “Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”

Milton’s death toll stands at 32 in the US and three in Mexico as of October 21. It’s currently estimated that economic losses from Hurricane Milton could be over $100 billion.

So while PwC staff outside of Tampa were getting pink slips the week Milton was angrily swirling straight at the west coast of Florida, the firm made the decision not to fire people who were likely under evacuation orders from a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane. A tipster originally told us the week of the 7th that PwC would wait until the following Monday to axe Tampa staff but according to Tampa Bay Business Journal, cuts the Tampa office came last Thursday. This aligns with what we were told by our tipster who said PwC “dropped the axe” on October 21 and “destroyed Florida.”

TBBJ didn’t have numbers on how many people were affected, nor do we, but we’re told most cuts happened from senior associate to senior manager level. PwC US COO Tim Grady told TBBJ in a statement that they’re “adapting to meet the needs of our clients and the rapidly changing market.”

“To remain competitive and position our business for the future, we are continuing to transform areas of our firm and are aligning our workforce to better support our strategy, including attracting and moving the right talent and skill sets to the areas where we need them most,” he added.

“It’s not over,” our tipster warns. “Other groups are being evaluated.”