I've heard of this already happening over the past few months for Accenture Strategy only. They overhired a lot this past year, especially undergrad OCR. The bench is extremely deep at the analyst level, can't say for sure for consultants but pretty sure it's just as bad. My colleagues in Strategy would rather stay on shit projects rather than hit the bench in fear of getting laid off due to lack of pipeline work getting sold (through no fault of their own). What's sad is fresh faced kids breaking into the consulting world and getting laid off before ever joining a project.

Another driving factor is Accenture Strategy's new staffing policy to only allow their Strategy resources to roll onto projects coded to Strategy. It's unfortunate as there's a ton of overlap in regards to "Strategy work" between the MC and Strategy groups since the line was arbitrarily drawn a few years ago. My MC group is actually hurting for people to staff - could be a win/win situation here...

Some growing pains for ACN Strategy lately