Google staring at layoffs if 'Q3 results don’t improve': 'There will be blood on the streets'

Amid layoffs at Big Tech companies and a freeze in hiring, search engine giant Google has warned its employees to either boost performance or prepare to leave if the third quarter results are not as expected, media reports said.

In a message, viewed by Insider, Google Cloud sales leadership told the employees that there would be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general” and if the third quarter results “don’t look up,

The employees told Insider that they are “fearful of layoffs”, adding that Google has also extended its hiring freeze this month without any announcement.

In the past quarter, Google’s revenue growth deaccelerated to its slowest pace in two years as advertisers reduced their spending amid the growing fear of economic recession, AP reported in July.

In the April-June quarter, the revenue of Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet, stood at $69.7 billion, which was a 13 percent growth as compared with 62 percent in the same period last year. It was the lowest growth rate clocked by Alphabet since the April-June quarter of 2020 when the company suffered its only year-over-year revenue decline.

In an all-hands meeting last month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees to improve productivity due to fierce economic headwinds which have impacted all companies in the tech sector.

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have,” New York Post quoted Pichai as saying.

Till the end of March, Google had nearly 164,000 employees.

In July, Google announced a hiring freeze for two weeks although it has not reversed its decision yet. This has prompted employees to fear the worst, Insider reported.

The search engine giant is not the only tech company that has slowed hiring or put its employees on notice.

Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta, which is the parent company of social media giant Facebook, took a series of cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze, New York Post reported. The company’s founder and CEO also said Meta would part ways with those employees who do not perform well.