Press release

15 Apr 2020 London, GB

EY Partners take a long-term view in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

EY Partners will do everything to navigate the COVID-19 situation with no redundancies among its 17,000 UK employees, no people furloughed and no salary reductions.

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Rosanna Lander
Rosanna Lander

UK&I Head of Public Relations and External Affairs, Ernst & Young LLP

Leads external communications activity for EY in the UK. Passionate about travel and culture.

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Related topics COVID-19
 

EY has today announced that its Partners will do everything possible to navigate through the COVID-19 situation with no redundancies amongst its 17,000 UK employees, no people furloughed and no reduction in employee salaries.

EY also announced that it would continue with a number of critical internal promotions to Partner as usual in July and continue its apprenticeship programmes for graduates and school leavers in full in the UK, in line with any normal business year. It will also continue with internship programmes, adapted where necessary to cope with a remote-working environment. EY expects to recruit around 1000 graduates and apprentices this year and around 370 interns.

EY will reduce partner profit distributions in the UK by 20% in order to provide additional flexibility and financial resilience through the challenging economic environment posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. These steps are designed to help secure the long-term success of EY.

Steve Varley, EY’s UK Chairman and UK and Ireland Regional Managing Partner, said: “EY’s long-term success has always been dependent on the well-being and engagement of our people. The focus of our Partners and people at this time is on helping the UK, our clients and other stakeholders to respond to the COVID-19 situation and we want them to be able to do so in the confidence that we are doing everything we can to protect their jobs.

“COVID-19 has inevitably impacted UK and global economies. Our business has remained resilient, but we have taken steps to look after our people and reduce and defer costs where possible. Reducing Partner profit distributions is a further prudent move in a time of economic uncertainty and will provide additional flexibility and improve financial strength.”

EY has already taken a number of actions to support its people in the UK as the COVID-19 situation has evolved. This includes doubling the period of Special Leave for those with caring responsibilities in emergency situations, and the extension of full discretionary sick pay to all employees, regardless of their length of service with EY.