Accountants Get Their Due

(Rasmussen image)

Accountants are in demand:

A deepening shortage of accountants is driving a growing number of companies to raise salaries or seek temporary help to strengthen their finance teams amid a slowing economy...

But, the problem for companies isn’t just the tight labor market. The profession is also attracting fewer job entrants, with the number of U.S. students who completed accounting degrees falling by 2.8% for bachelor’s and 8.4% for master’s in the 2019 to 2020 academic year compared with the prior year.

As it was 45 years ago when your humble blogger was a new CPA, accounting still is seen--rightly, IMHO--as an unglamourous profession. Many accountants labor in the back room, re-checking reams of data and summarizing them in bite-size chunks so that executives can understand them.

What accountants do is unnoticed when things are running smoothly. but like when something goes wrong with the out-of-sight electrical or plumbing systems, the problem often must be fixed immediately. (When payroll or cash collections or vendor payments stop, it soon becomes a crisis.)

In an age of self-aggrandizement, it isn't surprising that diligent detail work in the backroom doesn't appeal to young people. Fortunately, we live in a market economy where prices (wages) rise so that supply meets demand.

It's nice to see accountants get their due.