The accountant shortage is worsening, and leaders are turning to new technologies to lighten the workloads of their overworked employees, a global survey has found.

Personiv’s CFO Pulse Survey has found that the accountant shortage has posed a persistent challenge for business leaders, and companies have been innovating to attract talent and optimise the efficiency of their teams.

“We found that more decision makers are aware of how important work-life balance, learning opportunities, and competitive pay are to job seekers,” Megan Weis, Personiv’s VP and general manager of FAO Services, said.

“We’re seeing evidence of changes in mindset and strategy in a very traditional field. This year marks a shift from awareness to action as leaders implement new solutions at scale.”

Organisations had an average of 5.2 open accounting roles, over double the 2024 average, the survey found. Almost half (49 per cent) of those positions would take more than 60 days to fill, leaving teams understaffed and overworked.

As hiring challenges continued to burden teams, 65 per cent of organisations turned to outsourcing to fill workforce gaps, while 38 per cent implemented AI to help their teams work more efficiently.

A vast majority (87 per cent) of decision makers acknowledged the talent shortage in 2025, while 20 per cent said it was getting worse. This marked a significant uptick since the survey’s inception in 2020, when only 63 per cent of leaders agreed there was a talent shortage.

Over a third (38 per cent) of leaders said that the talent shortage was their top hiring challenge, followed by rising salary expectations (26 per cent) and time-consuming hiring processes (17 per cent).

Personiv found that young candidates looked beyond salary in 2025 when selecting their workplaces. Gen Z job seekers first prioritised positive company culture (28 per cent), work-life balance (24 per cent) and, thirdly, competitive salary and benefits (23 per cent).

Around a fifth (21 per cent) of leaders said it was a strategic priority to embrace new technologies such as AI to streamline processes and reduce manual workloads in 2025, while only 12 per cent said that they had not yet implemented AI in some capacity.

As the talent shortage appears set to persist, technology may be a key avenue for employers to maintain productivity in their teams while retaining coveted work/life balance.

“Accounting and finance organisations that are using AI and automation are creating greater operational efficiencies, reducing costs, and improving employee work-life balance,” Matt Wood, Personiv’s global head of finance and accounting outsourcing, said.

“These advancements in the finance sector are putting organisations in a better position to attract and retain scarce talent.”