Qualified CAs and RAs have been leaving the country at a steady pace, which has accelerated over the past year. This has involved RAs or potential RAs leaving a firm altogether, or joining the same firm in another country. The firms bearing the brunt of this are small firms, as the large networks are replacing staff by recruiting talent from small firms.

The reason for this is not only financial, but also due to the global trend of young professionals moving around and not staying in one place for long. Therefore, firms, especially small firms, need to be vigilant in developing and applying their human resources policies to recruit new staff and maintain good relationships with existing personnel.

In the last few years, the audit profession has been suffering an onslaught by the press, with audit failures being exposed and old cases persistently being quoted in the media when writing about auditors or the audit profession.

The IRBA is feeling this pressure and its effect on the profession, and is launching initiatives to address the public image of the profession.
Although there are many reasons to complain about conditions in the profession, our first step as fellow professionals should perhaps be to stop negativity, address our tasks and interactions positively, and do our best not to fuel the unfair negative sentiment towards our profession.