Google Employees Brace for Cost-Saving Measures

Google employees are reportedly bracing for cost-saving measures, fearing they could lead to mass layoffs the company has so far avoided....
Google Employees Brace for Cost-Saving Measures
Written by Matt Milano

Google employees are reportedly bracing for cost-saving measures, fearing they could lead to mass layoffs the company has so far avoided.

The economic downturn has hit the tech industry especially hard, with many of Google’s rivals already resorting to layoffs in an effort to cut costs. While Google has so far managed to avoid that step, employees are growing increasingly worried such layoffs may be imminent.

According to The New York Times, Google employees in Switzerland have voiced concerns about measures the company is putting in place to evaluate employee performance.

“The number and spread of reports that reached us indicates that at least some managers were aggressively pressured to apply a quota” on a process that could lead to employees getting negative ratings and potentially losing their jobs, five workers and employee representatives wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times.

Despite Google’s profits and outlook, some investors are increasingly pushing the company to do more to reign in costs and protect the profits it’s earning.

Read more: Analyst Says Google Should Conduct Layoffs

“One of the most obvious ways to do that is to cut costs and reduce your employee head count,” Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said.

Mahaney added that it was “kind of odd” that Google’s parent Alphabet hired 30,000 in just the last three quarters, seemingly bucking the overall economic and industry trends. All told, Alphabet’s worker count comes in at 186,779.

Google’s employees have been concerned about the company’s future plans for some time, but the anxiety appears to be reaching all-new levels, according to the Times.

From the impending closure of a small office and the cancellation of a content-moderation project to various efforts to ease budgets during 2023 planning meetings, the Silicon Valley behemoth has become a tinderbox of anxiety, according to interviews with 14 current and former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Only time will tell if Google plans to join its rivals and conduct mass layoffs, although the company has always avoided layoffs as a matter of pride.

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