Judith Spiegel had a job lined up at Grant Thornton LLP when she graduated from the University of Denver with a master’s degree in accounting last year.
Spiegel, who started her job at the end of September, was joined last month by another 15 people Grant Thornton brought on board to keep up with its ever-expanding client list.
Since June 2007, the accounting firm has increased its workforce from 65 employees to 106, said Jim Burton, managing partner in the international company’s Denver office. He expects to hire more people between September and next January.
“We’ve been hiring to deliver on our service promise to our clients,” Burton said.
As job losses mount nationwide, accountants are finding their services are still in demand.
“Someone’s still got to crunch those numbers,” said Marilyn Turner, vice president at Rocky Mountain Recruiters Inc., a national accounting and finance job-search company. “The accountants that are getting laid off from companies are getting picked up by others. There are parts of the country that are slower than others, but Denver is still pretty stable.”
Burton said up to 80 percent of the people he’s hiring are coming out of universities, and not all of them are accounting majors. Those applying for jobs include finance majors and law students.
“Now they’re interested in accounting because their industries didn’t have the same employment opportunities,” he said.
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
