BL Premium reports that the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (Irba) has warned that the auditing profession in SA is battling a shortage of skills, due partly to low maths literacy and emigration.
According to Irba CEO Imre Nagy, most of the top auditing firms in SA have flagged the attractiveness of the profession as an emerging challenge. Among the reasons for the industry losing its lustre are high entry requirements to study accounting, high tuition fees, low pay, high work stress and tight deadlines, and negative publicity about the auditing profession. “The contest for talent in SA is exacerbated by low maths literacy significantly reducing the student pool; and a number of push-and-pull factors such as political and socioeconomic instability that on the one hand pushes emigration, and on the other pulls our highly skilled and in-demand professionals to alleviate global shortages,” he explained. The pandemic also enabled remote working to communicate and perform audit work from anywhere in the world. Irba recently accredited the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) as an additional professional accounting body and hopes this will provide another route to the audit specialisation programme for aspiring registered auditors.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kabelo Khumalo at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page