Although accounting has been seen "as one of America's most boring jobs," Gen Z is realizing the perks of becoming an accountant, namely: the six-figure salary, the professional experience and the personal satisfaction gained from helping underserved individuals file their taxes for free, Fortune says.
While this awareness for accounting is growing in Gen Z, millions of accountants in the boomer generation are getting ready to retire, shrinking the profession's talent pool.
And now Gen Z might be gearing up to replace some of the 340,000 accountants who have already quit the profession in the last five years, with some estimating that 75% of those remaining are expected to retire in the next decade.
But the real problem lies in accounting’s image as a “boring” profession. It might be that getting students excited about taxes is still the “ultimate challenge.”
There's a way out of this dilemma: Making Gen Z realize the value of the accounting profession through public service initiatives has made it more appealing to them.
Having programs like Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) grant program at universities has motivated Gen Z to explore the accounting profession. According to Logan Steele, an accounting professor at Oregon State University, many young people have an outdated view of what an accountant actually does. However, the tide is beginning to turn, he says. Mostly all accounting graduates at OSU—98%—have been able to secure jobs in the field, he says, adding that their salaries are the highest in recorded history of any major program at the business school.
With Gen Zers increasingly preferring job security over job flexibility, the shift to accepting accounting as a promising career path can grow, especially with the current calls from different state societies and legislation from various U.S. states to decrease the barriers to becoming a CPA.