Dive Brief:
- Consulting and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will push a new benefit it hopes will help set the company apart — starting next year, the firm's freshest grads will receive $1,200 a year to help pay off student loan debt, according to USAToday.com.
- USA Today reports that PwC relies heavily on recent college grads to fill positions across its auditing, consulting, tax and internal services groups. It hires more than 11,000 students a year through campus recruiting, and 45% of its 46,000-strong U.S. workforce are entry-level employees who graduated in the last five years.
- The PwC program is being offered to all of its roughly 22,000 employees at the associate and senior associate level. Due to privacy laws that prohibit it from asking employees about personal debt, PwC doesn't know how many of those employees have student loans, spokeswoman Megan DiSciullo told USAToday.
Dive Insight:
The PwC perk marks a continuing shift in corporate priorities as companies attempt to attract and retain employees with more compelling benefits like unlimited vacation, extended maternity leave and personal finance education, according to USAToday.
PwC's commitment isn't meant to attract more Millennials to the company, Shannon Schuyler, PwC's chief purpose officer, told USAToday. Instead, she hopes it reflects a broader set of corporate values.
"It's something that we want to be at the core of who we are ... when you look at 40 million Americans having student debt, that's a huge problem, and if we can figure out how to be even a small part of solving that, that's what we want to do," Schuyler said.
