Search engine giant, Google has warned its employees about layoffs if the third quarter results are not as expected.
According to reports, Google executives have warned workers to either boost performance or prepare to leave. If third-quarter results don’t look up, ‘there will be blood on the streets.’
The report also claimed that Google Cloud sales leadership has threatened employees with an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general” before the third quarter evaluation.
Google hired about 10,000 new employees in the second quarter and more who are committed to starting this quarter. The company has employed almost 164,000 people as of March 31 and has hired primarily in recent years for Google’s cloud division and new fields like hardware.
Google builds products that help create opportunities for everyone, whether down the street or across the globe. The company is not entirely freezing the hiring. In the years 2022 and 2023, the company will focus the hiring on engineering, technical, and other critical roles.
The employees are worried about possible layoffs after Google had put a two-week hiring freeze in place which has yet to be reversed. If the hiring freeze extension could mean bad news for them – even layoffs possibly.
Earlier this month, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, said he is not satisfied with the work output of many employees. According to Pichai, productivity at Google is below where it ought to be”
The company earnings in the second quarter of 2022 were weaker than expected, as was the case with the first quarter.
The search giant began a new initiative called ‘Simplicity Sprint‘ in an effort to increase productivity. Pichai has urged the employees to “create a culture that is more mission-focused”.
Pichai had stated that the company would reduce recruiting and investment through 2023, pushing staff to work with greater urgency and “more hunger” than demonstrated “on sunnier days”.
During the meeting, Pichai was also asked about potential layoffs – a question he palmed off to Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi. Cicconi said the company did not have immediate plans to reduce its workforce but did not rule it out completely either.
Google is not alone the company that is putting a freeze on hiring. Facebook‘s parent company Meta, has also made it clear that the company will part ways with employees who do not perform as expected.
Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter has also informed employees of the hiring freeze in a message earlier this year, citing a recent lag on growth and revenue targets.
