KPMG is asking its 11,000 British staff to take unpaid leave or face an extensive redundancy programme.

The programme underlines the challenges faced by professional services firms, which are now being seriously hit by the recession and have begun to cut staff.

KPMG, one of the “Big Four” global accountancy firms, wrote to all its staff by e-mail yesterday morning asking them to volunteer for sabbaticals of between four and twelve weeks on 30 per cent pay or move to a four-day week with the fifth day unpaid.

The e-mail said that the proposal, which it called a contingency plan, was designed to help KPMG to avoid a firm-wide redundancy programme.

It added that the sabbaticals were not compulsory and that not all requests for shorter working hours would necessarily be met. The accountancy firm will decide next month how many workers will take part in the scheme.

KPMG’s other European operations are introducing similar programmes to offer shorter working weeks to staff.

Accountancy firms across the UK have quietly begun to cut jobs in a clear sign that they are bracing themselves for a tough year.

KPMG’s move follows hundreds of voluntary redundancies at its rivals PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte last year in divisions of the firms that have had little work since the downturn hit.

The Big Four’s two smaller rivals, Grant Thornton and BDO Stoy Hayward, have laid off even more staff.

Grant Thornton said last month that up to 225 of its staff could be axed including 40 partners, some of whom would take early retirement, while BDO Stoy Hayward said it would shed 250 staff.

A significant drop in the amount of corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and bank lending advisory work since the credit crunch struck has hit lawyers and accountants hard.

The increase in counter-cyclical work including litigation and insolvency has not been enough to keep armies of staff who worked on such deals during the boom years busy.

Tens of thousands of investment bankers have been made redundant and the downturn is also hitting lawyers. Last weekThe Timesrevealed that Clifford Chance, the world’s largest law firm, had a cash call in which it asked its 400 partners to stump up hundreds of thousands of pounds each to fund the business’s working capital requirements. Partners will be expected to provide an average of £150,000 each to make up a £60 million cash injection.

The firm also made 80 staff redundant. Jeremy Sandelson, London managing partner for Clifford Chance, said that the redundancy announcement was prompted by prevailing market conditions. Trainee solicitors are excluded from the cuts.

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