Number of employees of EY worldwide by service line 2009-2020

Ernst and Young (EY) employed around 298,900 people worldwide in 2020, with around 99,200 of those employees working in the assurance service line and 63,400 employed in the tax services sector.

A growing global workforce

Of all the Big Four accounting firms, only Deloitte employed more people worldwide than EY in 2019. The firm has continually increased its worldwide workforce since 2010, with the advisory services sector seeing the greatest increase in the number of employees. EY is a global accounting company with employees based in more than 150 countries. In 2020, the largest share of its workforce was based in the geographic area of Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa (EMEIA).

EY: A brief history

EY was formed following a merger between two of the traditional Big Eight accounting firms in 1989; at the time, the merger created the largest professional services network in the world. Prior to the merger, Ernst and Whinney was the fifth largest accounting firm in the world, while Arthur Young ranked sixth – both had annual revenues of around two billion U.S. dollars. In 2019, EY reported record annual revenue figures of 36.4 billion U.S. dollars, making it the third largest of the current Big Four accounting firms.