Big Four Firms Diverge as Massachusetts Accounting Jobs Remain Flat

KPMG added more than 300 employees in Boston, while Deloitte and Ernst & Young trimmed staff, a split that leaves Massachusetts accounting jobs essentially flat even as payrolls among the Big Four diverge. Quick checklist for affected workers: confirm whether your role is counted in Boston headcount, ask HR if the change was a net hire or an internal transfer, and report your office and job title to this desk so we can track local impact.

The staffing snapshot comes from a Boston Business Journal piece by Stephen MacLeod that framed the trend with the headline "Accounting jobs flat in Mass.; Big Four firms' payroll diverge." The BBJ preview carries a date line of Monday, February 23, 2026, while an earlier fragment tied to the story references February 12, 2026; the story appeared in BBJ subscriber content and the preview includes the sentence "KPMG added more than 300 employees in Boston, while Deloitte and Ernst & Young both trimmed staff."

KPMG is identified as the focal company in the BBJ coverage and the preview text describes the firm as the global professional services firm that "added more than 300 employees in Boston." The BBJ wording does not specify the timeframe for those hires in the preview, but it highlights KPMG's local expansion in a market the paper otherwise calls flat for CPA jobs across Massachusetts.

Deloitte and Ernst & Young are both described in the BBJ preview as having "trimmed staff." The preview does not include specific headcount reductions for Deloitte or EY, nor does it state whether those reductions are concentrated in Boston offices or reflect broader Massachusetts staffing changes, but the firms are named directly in the contrast with KPMG's hiring surge.

The BBJ preview also places PwC at the top of a statewide ranking, stating "PwC topped the list of the largest accounting firms in Mass." That ranking is presented alongside a prompt to "See where your CPA firm ranked in this list of more than 100 firms," suggesting BBJ compiled a list of more than 100 Massachusetts accounting firms for comparison in the same subscriber package.

The BBJ preview includes surrounding newsroom items such as an event listing for Bizwomen Mentoring Monday and a call for input on a 2026 Employer Diversity Index, underscoring that the staffing report ran inside subscriber-only Professional Services coverage by Stephen MacLeod. What to do now: if you work at KPMG, Deloitte, EY, PwC or another firm in Boston or elsewhere in Massachusetts, confirm your office’s headcount change with HR, save any written notices, and send your office location and role to this reporter so we can confidentially map where hires and cuts are landing.