canadian headhunter

You Heard It Here First.

Some time ago I mentioned (on this very blog) about the rising demand for Auditors generated by the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

Now the big media - Canadian Business is taking notice. This week's cover story features 4 accountants with the title "Revenge of the Nerds" and the following money quote:

"Still, one big clue about the magnitude of the coming extra workload is the
demand for chartered accountants in the marketplace. Jeff Holloway, the
manager of Toronto operations for Robert Half International Inc., a
recruitment firm specializing in accounting and finance, has seen a huge
increase. "The demand, at this stage, may in fact outweigh the supply of
candidates that are available," he says, adding that salaries in the areas
of corporate governance, internal audit and business risk management have
gone up 8% to 10% in the past year.

According to Sue Paterson, senior manager of national campus recruitment at
KPMG, on top of the 20% increase in university recruitment in order to
accommodate the "unprecedented growth" in the industry related to
Sarbanes-Oxley and Canadian Public Accountability Board work, her
firm--which employs about 2,600 accountants in Canada--is looking to fill
350 positions at the senior accountant and managerial levels. It's the same
situation at Ernst & Young, which employs more than 1,000 accountants in
Canada. "Our biggest challenge, without question, is the need to recruit and
retain talent to be able to carry out audits," says Pagnutti. "All the
change that has happened has resulted in more robust audits, and as a result
the amount of time that we are spending doing audits has increased. And
Section 404 requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley have also created demand for
resources, in order to be able to help companies comply." Firms are looking
at all sorts of ways to increase their staffing numbers, including
recruiting them from their international offices."

Told ya.