E-Paper
Asked about Google's plans to ‘cull’ workforce, Sundar Pichai says ‘tough to…’
Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the employees that the company is trying to make important decisions, be disciplined, prioritise and rationalise so that it is set to better weather the storm regardless of what is ahead.
Google employees are nervous over the prospects of being laid off, the concerns which were expressed during their meeting with the company's bigwigs including chief executive officer Sundar Pichai.
When asked about the search engine giant's plans to downsize the workforce in 2023, Pichai said it is really tough predict the future and hence he cannot make forward-looking commitments, Business Insider reported.
Pichai told the employees that the company is trying to make important decisions, be disciplined, prioritise and rationalise so that it is set to better weather the storm regardless of what is ahead.
Earlier, there were reports that Google's parent company Alphabet Inc is planning to implement a performance improvement plan which could eventually lead to the firing of 10,000 employees. As per a report from HT's sister website Livemint, employees who ‘score low’ will be asked to resign.
Last month, Google's investor TCI Fund Management Ltd in a letter to the search engine giant had asked it to take aggressive action to reduce expenses and scale back an overgrown headcount.
Management should publicly set a target for profit margins, increase share buybacks and reduce losses in its portfolio of Other Bets -- the company’s long-shot projects -- TCI Managing Director Chris Hohn wrote Tuesday in an open letter to Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai, Bloomberg had reported.
Alphabet had said it would slow hiring and control expenses after the company's reported earnings and revenue missed expectations. The company said that the third-quarter sales, excluding payments to distribution partners, were $57.27 billion. That compared with the average analyst projection for $58.18 billion.
The net income was $1.06 per share, less than Wall Street’s estimates for $1.25 per share. Shares fell more than 6% in post-market trading, Bloomberg reported.
(With Bloomberg inputs)
