Google will cut back on STAPLERS and laptop replacements for workers in huge cost-saving measure after announcing 12,000 layoffs in January
- Google’s finance chief, Ruth Porat, has announced in a company-wide email that the tech giant is to cut employee services to save money
- Company’s objective for 2023 is to ‘deliver durable savings through improved velocity and efficiency’
- Google is cutting back on fitness classes, staplers, tape, and will reduce how often its workers get their laptops replaced
Google’s finance chief, Ruth Porat, has penned a rare company-wide email explaining how the tech giant is introducing measures to cut employee services in an effort to reduce expenses.
The company’s goal for 2023 is to ‘deliver durable savings through improved velocity and efficiency.’
Porat detailed how Google is cutting back on everything from fitness classes for its employees to office basics from staplers and tape while also reducing the frequency of laptop replacements for its workers.
The cost-cutting measures come as Alphabet-owned Google is undergoing its most severe era of cost cuts in its almost two decades as a public company.
In January, the company announced the cutting of 12,000 jobs, representing about 6 percent of its workforce in order to deal with slowing sales growth following record growth in its headcount.
Google’s finance chief, Ruth Porat, has penned a rare company-wide email explaining how the tech giant is introducing measures to cut employee services in an effort to reduce expenses
Google’s parent company Alphabet announced in January how it was axing 12,000 jobs in the latest savage round of white collar layoffs sweeping across the tech sector
Every little helps: The company plans to cut back on staplers as part of cost-saving measures
Other cost-cutting measures have seen Google refusing to pay the remainder of laid-off employees’ maternity and medical leaves.
In her email, Porat stated how the layoffs were ‘the hardest decisions we’ve had to make as a company.’
She noted that the cost-cutting measures were vital due to recent growth, a challenging economic environment, and the need for investment opportunities to drive technology forward, particularly in AI.
Porat referred to the year 2008 twice in her email, stating how Google had been in a similar position before when the company’s expenses were growing faster than its revenue.
With more employees working from home up to two days a week, Google may shut in-house cafes on Mondays and Fridays together with other facilities that are ‘underutilized.’ Pictured, Google’s Bay View campus, in Mountain View, California
At that time, the company had to take steps to improve machine utilization, narrow its real estate investments, tighten its belt on budgets, cafes, and mobile phone usage. She noted how Google would now be looking at various data to identify other areas of spending that might be able to be cut.
In addition to the cost-cutting measures, Google is also cutting the availability of some employee services.
With more employees working from home up to two days a week, Google may shut in-house cafes on Mondays and Fridays together with other facilities that are ‘underutilized.’
The company is to cut back on food, fitness, massage, and transportation programs which were all introduced when workers were coming into offices five days a week.
Google and other California tech companies like Amazon and Meta were known for having unconventional campuses that offer employees quirky perks like juice bars and spas.
In January it was revealed how some 27 masseuses working for Google lost their jobs as part of the company’s largest ever round of layoffs.
The masseuses were on-site massage therapists that would provide services to staff as rewards for good work.
The CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, announced in January how would cut 12,000 employees in total – around 6 percent of its workforce
In January, Google eliminated 27 on-site massage therapists. Pictured, a massage room at its Mountain View, California campus
Two dozen of the masseuses had been working in Mountain View with another three basic in LA and Irvine, California.
Tech companies have been especially hard hit by tech layoffs after over-hiring during the move online through the pandemic.
Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans that were increasingly buying stuff online to keep themselves safe from the virus.
Numerous tech giants, including Salesforce Inc and PayPal have slashed thousands of jobs in recent months after pandemic-led hiring sprees left them overstaffed.
Websites with models built on advertising were also more at risk when companies worldwide slashed advertising budgets to weather rising prices and interest rates.
Valuations of early stage tech companies were also inflated through the pandemic, plummeting in 2022 when interest rates rose and funding was pulled, leading to layoffs.
At just seven large tech firms, the job cuts announced in recent months total nearly 70,000: Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, HP and Twitter
It is not just in the tech sector where cuts are being made.
McDonald’s has temporarily shut down all of its U.S. offices as it prepares to deliver layoff messages online to a number of their employees across the country.
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the layoffs – part of a company restructuring – will begin Monday after the company told employees to work from home so it can fire their staff virtually.
‘During the week of April 3, we will communicate key decisions related to roles and staffing levels across the organization,’ McDonald’s officials said in a memo.
The company said that it made the decision to announce cuts virtually due to an anticipated busy travel week.
It’s unclear at this time how many employees are set to be laid off, however, CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a January email there would be ‘difficult discussions and decisions ahead.’
McDonald’s has temporarily shut down all of its U.S. offices as it prepares to deliver layoff messages online to employees
The new report from the Wall Street Journal said the Chicago-based chain told employees last week in an internal email on Wednesday.
While the message was mostly to U.S. employees, some international corporate workers were also included.
In the memo, company executives also advised that upcoming in-person meetings with vendors and other outside parties at headquarters be canceled.
Workers who don’t have access to a computer were told to give their personal contact information to their manager.
‘We want to ensure the comfort and confidentiality of our people during the notification period,’ the company said.
McDonald’s employs roughly 200,000 people around the world in corporate roles and company owned restaurants.
Around 75 percent of the employees are located outside of the U.S.
DailyMail.com has contacted McDonald’s for comment on the layoffs as well as an estimated number of job cuts anticipated but did not hear back.
It’s unclear at this time how many employees are set to be laid off, however, CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a January email there would be ‘difficult discussions and decisions ahead’
Tech job cuts – including mass layoffs at Meta and Twitter – are accelerating
In recent months, several tech companies have announced cost-cutting measures, with Amazon, Apple and Google-parent Alphabet all announcing hiring slowdowns or freezes.
For the tech sector, the pandemic boom has turned to a post-pandemic bust, as increasing interest rates rock share prices and inflation cuts into profits.
The sector shed 9,587 jobs in October, the largest monthly total since November 2020, according to data from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas cited by Bloomberg.
Total job cuts announced by US-based employers jumped 13% to 33,843 in October, the highest since February 2021, a report said.
PayPal
PayPal Holdings Inc. is scheduled to report quarterly results on February 9. Shares of the company are down about 53% in the past year. They rose 2.3% to close Tuesday at $81.49
PayPal has announced it will cut back around 7% of its total workforce, or about 2,000 full-time workers, as the digital payments company contends with what it calls ‘the challenging macro-economic environment’.
PayPal said it will make the cuts over several weeks, with some of its organizations affected more than others.
The company did not further specify. PayPal is the parent of Venmo, Xoom and Honey, among other brands. The company is based in San Jose, California.
‘Over the past year, we made significant progress in strengthening and reshaping our company to address the challenging macro-economic environment while continuing to invest to meet our customers’ needs,’ PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman said Tuesday in a statement.
‘While we have made substantial progress in right-sizing our cost structure, and focused our resources on our core strategic priorities, we have more work to do.’
Alphabet
Google’s parent company Alphabet is axing 12,000 jobs in the latest round of white collar layoffs sweeping across the tech sector.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s CEO, said the losses affect teams across the company including recruiting and some corporate functions, as well as some engineering and products teams.
Pichai said in the note: ‘I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI.
‘To fully capture it, we’ll need to make tough choices. So, we’ve undertaken a rigorous review across product areas and functions to ensure that our people and roles are aligned with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review. They cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions.’
Meta
The Facebook-parent said in November it would cut 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, in one of the biggest tech layoffs this year as it grapples with a weak advertising market and mounting costs.
Meta said it would cut 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, in one of the biggest tech layoffs this year
Like its peers, Meta aggressively hired during the pandemic to meet a surge in social media usage by stuck-at-home consumers.
But the pandemic boom-times have petered out as advertisers and consumers halt spending in the face of rising costs and rapidly increasing interest rates.
After plunging billions into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse vision with little to show for it, Meta has been faced with rising costs and shrinking profits.
Meta, once worth more than $1 trillion, is now valued at $256 billion after losing more than 70% of its value last year alone.
‘Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected,’ Zuckerberg said in a message to employees, according to Reuters.
‘I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.’
Mark Zuckerberg delivered news about the job cuts on a call with hundreds of Meta executives
On a short call, a red-eyed Zuckerberg addressed employees but took no questions.
He stuck to a script that closely followed the wording in the morning’s blogpost and called the increased investments in e-commerce a ‘big mistake in planning.’
Twitter laid off half its workforce across teams ranging from communications and content curation to product and engineering following Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover.
The cutbacks affected around 3,700 employees, who learned their fate by email last week.
However, Bloomberg reported Twitter was reaching out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs, asking them to return.
Twitter laid off half its workforce across teams ranging from communications and content curation to product and engineering
Elon Musk previously said there was no other choice but to impose mass layoffs as the company sheds hundreds of millions of dollars every year and needs a financial overhaul
Salesforce
In January, cloud-based software company Salesforce announced it will lay off 10% of its employees or about 8,000 workers.
CEO Marc Benioff cited a rough period for the tech sector as well as over-hiring during the coronavirus pandemic leading to the decision.
Several weeks ago, it quietly laid off hundreds of employees.
‘Our sales performance process drives accountability. Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition,’ a Salesforce spokesperson told CNBC in a statement in November.
Salesforce had 73,541 employees at the start of last year – it is the largest employer in the San Francisco area.
Salesforce said in an August filing that headcount rose 36% in the past year ‘to meet the higher demand for services from our customers’.
Amazon
Amazon said it would lay off 18,000 corporate and technology jobs in what will be the largest job cuts in the company’s history.
Amazon reportedly lost $1trillion over the year after its stock plummeted from a high during the pandemic.
If the company goes through with its proposal to cut 10,000 jobs, it would lose around 3% of Amazon’s corporate employees
The move comes after the company put a hiring freeze in place, affecting major teams including Prime Video, Alexa and Amazon Fresh.
‘We’re facing an unusual macroeconomic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,’ Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, wrote in a memo, seen by the Wall Street Journal.
Intel
Intel Corp’s CEO Pat Gelsinger told Reuters ‘people actions’ would be part of a cost-reduction plan.
The chipmaker said recently it would lower costs by $3 billion in 2023, before ramping that up to $10 billion by 2025.
The adjustments would start in the fourth quarter, Gelsinger said, but did not specify how many employees would be affected.
Some Intel divisions, including the sales and marketing group, could be reduced by up to 20%, Bloomberg News reported last month, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
Chipmaker Intel is reportedly planning major layoffs, likely to be in the thousands, in the face of a slowdown in the personal computer market
Intel had 113,700 employees as of July, when it slashed its annual sales forecast by $11 billion after missing estimates for second-quarter results.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, declined to comment on the job cuts when reached by DailyMail.com in October.
Intel has been stung by shifting market trends, including the decline of traditional personal computers as smartphones and tablets rise in popularity.
Last quarter, global PC shipments, including desktops and laptops, declined another 15% from a year ago, according to IDC.
Microsoft
Microsoft in January initiated layoffs of 10,000 employees, citing slowing customer demand and a negative economic environment.
‘We’re also seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one,’ CEO Satya Nadella said in a company memo.
The layoffs affected nearly 5% of Microsoft’s global workforce.
Microsoft previously laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions last year, according to Axios.
In a statement, Microsoft executives said: ‘Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly.
Microsoft laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions last month, according to Axios
‘We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead.’
Microsoft executives previously announced in July that it was laying off less than 1% of its workforce and significantly slow hiring, as its revenue fell short of investor expectations.
The company recorded only $51.9 billion in revenue during the second quarter of the year, but was expected to rake in $52.4 billion.
It had previously recorded blockbuster growth during the COVID pandemic, when consumers and businesses turned to its products as they shifted to a work-from-home model.
Lyft
Ride-hailing firm Lyft said it would lay off 13% of its workforce, or about 683 employees, after it already cut 60 jobs earlier this year and froze hiring in September.
Lyft said in a regulatory filing it would likely incur $27 to $32 million in restructuring charges related to the layoffs.
‘We are not immune to the realities of inflation and a slowing economy,’ Lyft’s founders wrote in the memo to staffers.
Ride-hailing firm Lyft said it would lay off 13% of its workforce, or around 683 employees, after it already cut 60 jobs earlier this year
The company’s share price has dropped 76% since the start of the year and currently stands at around $10, compared to nearly $45 in January.
Announcing the job cuts in a memo seen by the Wall Street Journal, Lyft founders John Zimmer and Logan Green told staff: ‘There are several challenges playing out across the economy.
‘We’re facing a probable recession sometime in the next year and rideshare insurance costs are going up.
‘We worked hard to bring down costs this summer: we slowed, then froze hiring; cut spending; and paused less-critical initiatives.
‘Still, Lyft has to become leaner, which requires us to part with incredible team members.’
Lyft has around 4,000 employees, not including its drivers.
Spotify
The music streaming service said on January 22 it plans to cut 6% of its workforce, an estimated 588 employees from its 9,800 full time staff.
Spotify said it will incur about $38million in severance-related charges.
The company, whose CEO is Daniel Ek, said its chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff will also depart.
Spotify said on January 22 it plans to cut 6% of its workforce, an estimated 588 employees
Apple
Though Apple has not yet announced any major layoffs, CEO Tim Cook told CBS Mornings that it is slowing some hiring as well.
‘What we’re doing as a consequence of being in this period, is we’re being very deliberate in our hiring,’ he said.
‘That means we’re continuing to hire, but not everywhere in the company are we hiring.’
At the same time, though, Cook said ‘we don’t believe you can save your way to prosperity’.
‘We think you invest your way to it,’ he said.
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