Google joins layoff trend in 2022, to let go 10,000 ‘low performing’ employees: Reports

Livemint ^ | 11.23.2022 | Sounak Mukhopadhyay

[libh8er]

Google is going to implement a performance improvement plan to gradually let go of 10,000 employees, multiple media reports suggest. The move is reportedly in response to pressure from an activist hedge fund, unfavourable market circumstances and the need to reduce expenses. Employees who receive low performance ratings will be let go.

In contrast to the customary 2%, Google managers have been instructed to identify 6% of staff, or 10,000 people, as bad performers. Supervisors were instructed to reduce the inflated scores in a previous notification.

Hedge fund billionaire Christopher Hohn has argued in a letter to Alphabet that the number of employees in the company needs to be reduced. The UK investor has also told Google's parent firm that its employees are paid excessively compared to other digital companies.

Hohn claims that the company's headcount is "excessive" in comparison to historical hiring patterns and does not meet the requirements of the present business environment. He asserts that the search engine can be effectively administered with many fewer highly-compensated specialists.

According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission report, the average salary for an Alphabet employee in 2021 was around $295,884. The salary exceeded what Microsoft paid its staff by over 70%. Alphabet paid its employees 153% more than what the 20 largest tech companies in the United States paid their employees.

Hohn’s views seem uncannily similar to Elon Musk's concept for Twitter. Many well-known US-based digital businesses like Twitter, Amazon and Meta, are trying to save costs. Just over a month ago, the majority of businesses reported their largest-ever layoffs. In addition to Twitter losing more than one-third of its personnel, Meta laid off roughly 11,000 workers. It's anticipated that Amazon will keep cutting staff far into 2023.

[grey_whiskers]

Carly was the See You Next Tuesday who said, “No American has a right to a job.”

Meaning, she gets to shaft her own countrymen by hiring cheap foreigners and pocketing the difference.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Not bad if you can get it. :-)

[OrioleFan]

Thanks

[unread]

"let go 10,000 ‘low performing’ employees"..

Well, that's not fair..! What about equal opportunity and all that rot.??

[SamAdams76]

A lot of employees do not realize the full cost of their employment to the company. It is not just the salary they get paid but the unemployment insurance their company must pay for them. Also the employer pays a percentage of the FICA tax on the employee's behalf. Then consider that employers often offer benefits which they subsidize (to minimize employee cost) and other things like company match on 401k plans.

All told, this comes to roughly 40% of the employees salary. So if you are paid $100,000 in salary, it is costing your company more like $140,000 to have your onboard.

[Vaduz]

What a shame after all the work they did to help with elections fraud for the democrats.

[oldvirginian]

Eleven replies before anyone brings up the Mumbai Express H1B1 invaders.
And you’re exactly right.

[StAnDeliver]

"Hedge fund billionaire Christopher Hohn has argued in a letter to Alphabet that the number of employees in the company needs to be reduced. The UK investor has also told Google's parent firm that its employees are paid excessively compared to other digital companies."

Absolute truth. GOOG had an incomparable year in 2021, but they splurged and the ad downturn is going to bomb out in 2023.

They will go after the 'woke' just like Musk cleaned house at Twitter. GOOG desperately needs Musk-motivated engineers, not diversity wogs who miss a week's worth of Zoom calls because they suffered a microtrigger and left for some beach. A mass firing, for better or worse, is a goddamn motivator.

[AppyPappy]

Until they lay off the one developer in charge of Payroll.