There are many signs the accounting talent shortage that helped spark certified public accountant licensing reform has been easing as AI and outsourcing have enabled some finance teams to do more with less staff.
That’s not to say labor problems are solved or that it’s all of a sudden easy to find accounting staff with the snap of a finger, experts told CFO Dive. Exactly what the pool of accounting talent looks like to employers can vary greatly by industry, geography and the level of experience companies want in their candidates, experts said.
This month, CFO Dive got a snapshot of how readers are seeing the accounting shortage in their business via an informal LinkedIn poll. The sampling of 14 respondents provided a somewhat mixed picture but one which leaned toward the talent problem persisting: 64% of the respondents indicated they were aware of a shortage in their industry and 29% said they were not.
Asked about the findings of the poll, Alexandria Romero, director of CPA pipeline programs at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, said the AICPA has heard similar feedback. While the institute is seeing “encouraging signs” when it comes to workforce pressures easing in certain areas, there’s still a strong need for accounting and CPA talent, Romero said.
“The labor market is not one-size-fits-all,” Romero told CFO Dive in an email. “Some larger CPA firms may see a higher volume of applicants for certain positions, while many small and mid-sized firms, organizations in industry, and employers in certain geographic markets continue to report challenges attracting and hiring qualified talent.”
Jack Castonguay, an associate professor of accounting at Hofstra University in New York, asserted that the poll may have been tilted toward respondents who are from midsize to small accounting firms that may have a problem finding workers.
Such firms have traditionally hired accountants who have been through Big Four training programs, but those training firms are now hiring fewer entry level accountants. In addition, small to midsized firms are not deploying AI as quickly as their larger counterparts, which increases their demand for a higher headcount, he said.
“I definitely think [the accounting shortage] is over at the larger firms,” Castonguay said.
The nationwide push to solve the accounting shortage by easing licensing requirements for CPAs has also been strongly welcomed in many rural areas that still seem to be suffering from a lack of accountants.
“In Vermont the shortage is very real,” Sadie Fischesser, executive director of the Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants, previously told CFO Dive. “We have a shrinking population and every year we have a fair number of members moving into retirement.”
In Vermont and nationwide, the accountant labor force does appear to be shrinking.
There were 1,200 CPAs in Vermont in fiscal 2025, about 50 more than the previous year, but well off the peak of about 1,400 active in 2019, Fischesser told CFO Dive in June.
Nationwide, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows there were 1.45 million accountants and auditors as of May 2025. This is compared to 1.58 million in the year earlier.
