Sundar Pichai, the head of Google and its parent company Alphabet, told employees to “be more entrepreneurial” and work with “more hunger” in an email to all staff warning of consolidation, several news outlets reported.
Citing the “uncertain global economic outlook,” the CEO said Google would slow its hiring pace for the second half of 2022. Google hired a whopping 10,000 workers in the second quarter, according to Pichai. Google’s chief executive went on to say the company would consolidate “where investments overlap” and streamline its processes. Effectively, Google is asking its employees to work harder or else.
Tech companies of all shapes and sizes have laid off workers in the face of a looming recession. This includes Google, Microsoft, Tesla and other corporate giants, as well as relatively much smaller businesses like Bird, Rivian and Coinbase. Pichai’s memo didn’t mention layoffs, but phrases like “streamlining” and “consolidating” tend to evoke such things.
Alphabet, for its part, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the memo. First-quarter net income fell 8% year over year to $16.44 billion. The company will report its second-quarter earnings on July 26.
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