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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#251

Post by spuz »

dom96 wrote: post #185
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

Guess that means Apple layoffs are next

Probably not - Apple laid off internal recruiter contrators in August 2022 as part of a plan to reduce hiring which was already much lower than the other big tech companies. For example in 2020 and 2021, Alphabet increased their workforce by 13% and 15%. Meta increased their workforce by 30% and 22%. Apple on the other hand only increased by 7% and 4% in those same years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/apple-had-slower-headcount-g...

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#252

Post by [deleted] »

eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

[deleted]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#253

Post by W4ldi »

oblio wrote: post #247

If you've ever wondered, this is not about immediate money concerns. In 2021 Google made $257 billion aka $257 000 000 000. And a profit of $76 bn aka $78 000 000 000. It had 187 000 employees. That works out to $1.3 million income per employee. And a net profit of $406 000 per employee. They don't need to lay off anyone. They just want to. I've seen smaller companies where they first shift employees around, offer ev…

> They don't need to fire anyone. They just want to.

Why would they want to? If they make so much money, why fire a few people for a massive amount of bad PR? So seem to know the reasoning. Enlighten us please.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#254

Post by michaelt »

jonp888 wrote: post #140

I work for a company about twice as big as Google. Getting permission to hire anyone is very difficult, and everyone is always 100% busy just to meet customer deadlines(which we often don't). I guess Google and other FAANG-type companies must work in a different way that I can't comprehend if they can just randomly decide to fire 10% of their workforce. If 10% of the people on my project were fired, our customers wou…

Google struck oil 20 years ago and money has been flowing in faster than they can spend it ever since. Some of that money let them drill more holes, and about 15 years ago some struck oil again.

Because it's worked in the past and they can afford it, they've continued drilling countless holes. For example, their many incompatible messaging systems [1].

Some of the holes seem to have been drilled without any regard as to whether finding oil in that location is even possible.

Presumably they hope to cut down on go-nowhere drilling, while still doing some drilling, in the areas where an oil strike is most likely.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-...

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#255

Post by larsrc »

rco8786 wrote: post #232
eCa wrote: post #51

I guess someone has to write this comment: > I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here As usual, he says nothing more what the consequences for him are. It seems like all of the FAANGs have made severe strategic cockups when it comes to hiring lately. I wonder if it will affect their longterm attraction as employers.

He said responsibility, not consequences. I am still not sure what people expect CEOs to do in these situations to "punish" themselves. Google is not going bankrupt, they are still wildly profitable, they overhired and are adjusting headcount by a few percent. It sucks for the people affected, I don't want to downplay that. But I'm genuinely curious what is supposed to happen to the leader in these situations.

What does it really mean to take responsibility, then?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#256

Post by ejb999 »

ako wrote: post #115
dzonga wrote: post #30

I blame companies for blaming with people's lives like this: not market dynamics. companies are the ones that decided to overhire, overpay - based on covid demand, cheap money that was floating around. companies not the market, resulted in a war over talent. now it's a war on talent. and of course everyone and their grandma will want to work at these tech companies where life is laid back and you get all the benefits…

Is overhiring really a problem, would the world be better if companies didn’t overhire? Then many of the people now laid off wouldn’t have had a job in the first place. If you accept a job for what it is, a temporary need for your help, and plan for what’s next, a period of layoffs should become manageable.

I agree.

Which is worse: never getting hired by google, or getting hired, working for a few years making a great or even outsized salary and then getting laid off after getting great experience? - or never having had the opportunity to in the first place?

An awful lot of people would prefer the first scenario and will come out ahead.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#257

Post by saidinesh5 »

Eisenstein wrote: post #250
ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

I guess it depends on what they were hired for. If they were on a team for a project that is no longer viable, should they be kept on and given busywork?

If they have cleared out Google's 6-7-8 rounds of interviews.. they can always be trained to move to/start into new projects no?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#258

Post by pm90 »

W4ldi wrote: post #253
oblio wrote: post #247

If you've ever wondered, this is not about immediate money concerns. In 2021 Google made $257 billion aka $257 000 000 000. And a profit of $76 bn aka $78 000 000 000. It had 187 000 employees. That works out to $1.3 million income per employee. And a net profit of $406 000 per employee. They don't need to lay off anyone. They just want to. I've seen smaller companies where they first shift employees around, offer ev…

> They don't need to fire anyone. They just want to. Why would they want to? If they make so much money, why fire a few people for a massive amount of bad PR? So seem to know the reasoning. Enlighten us please.

Its not bad PR when the narrative has already been set. This is a very opportunistic move at cost reduction that would have been scrutinized heavily under regular circumstances.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#259

Post by whiplash451 »

DrBazza wrote: post #110

Another multi-billion dollar company making billions of dollars of profit dumps thousands of staff on the streets. There are two approaches here. Firstly, attrition, simply don't replace those that leave. Given the sheer size of the company, a hiring freeze and attrition would gradually reduce the size of the workforce. I'd be astonished if a company with a market cap of $1.2 trillion would be likely to collapse if i…

1. The cost saving is much (much) faster with layoffs

2. You don't lose (or get rid of, for that matter) the same people when you do layoffs vs organic attrition

On (2), I don't only mean "good" vs "not good" people, but also distribution per department.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#260

Post by phpisthebest »

ergonaught wrote: post #234

I need to see these "I take full responsibility" people actually punished. At the very least, this sentence needs to be removed from their mouths. Alphabet had 116 billion USD "cash on hand" at the end of September 2022. Even if the full cost of each of those 12K employees is 500K per year, that's "only" 6 billion dollars to keep those "great" people that they "love" working with around. Net income for that quarter w…

I agree they need to stop with the rhetoric... but I am sure we are not going to agree with why or what the end result of that change be

The statement should read "We saw the "day in the life" video, we know you were not doing enough work so now we are reducing head count because clearly you have too much free time"

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