EY repays portion of COVID-19 pay cuts

Mr Johnson also confirmed that working hours and remuneration would return to 100 per cent on 3 August.

“While the demand and workload of different parts of our business have been impacted at different times and to varying extents — and we expect that will continue — we have performed better than we expected during this tumultuous period,” Mr Johnson said.

“While our results for the financial year (ending 30 June 2020) to date are better than expected, the storm is not over yet — uncertainty remains and we must remain cautious.”

EY’s update comes after the firm announced targeted reduction in working hours and pay for some staff in mid-April in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

The firm had chosen not to mandate pay cuts across the board and has yet to announce any redundancies, despite its rival big four firms travelling down that route.

Deloitte most recently announced 700 job cuts, with PwC parting ways with 400 roles and KPMG announcing 200 redundancies.

KPMG had this week also announced that it would repay its staff a portion of their COVID-19 pay cuts — equal to 1 per cent of the expected 6.7 per cent annualised pay cut.

“Our approach to changes in demand for our services has been, and will continue to be, to respond on a bespoke basis,” Mr Johnson said.

“We feel this bespoke approach is the best way to go for us — we definitely did not think it fair or appropriate to apply an across-the-board pay cut and ask people to work the same hours but be paid less.

“Our objectives remain unchanged: save lives, save jobs and manage our business for its long-term sustainability.”