Google employees may soon be searching for new jobs as the tech giant’s top boss warned of “economic headwinds” while urging workers to be “more entrepreneurial” and do their duties with “more hunger.”
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, said Wednesday it would slow the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, the latest company to make such a move as decades-high inflation and the fallout from the Ukraine crisis pressure businesses.
“Moving forward, we need to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days,” Pichai wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
“In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes. In other cases, that means pausing deployment and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas.”
The announcement aligns the parent of search giant Google with other major tech companies including Uber Technologies and Twitter and comes a day after Microsoft said it would eliminate some positions.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, circulated an email to employees this week. Bloomberg via Getty Images“Like all companies, we’re not immune to economic headwinds,” Alphabet said in a regulatory filing.
Hiring efforts will be focused toward engineering and technical roles, it said.
“Scarcity breeds clarity — this is something we have been saying since the earliest days of Google,” Pichai wrote.
“It’s what drives focus and creativity that ultimately leads to better products that help people all over the world.”
Pichai added: “That’s the opportunity in front of us today, and I’m excited for us to rise to the moment again.”
Pichal’s warning to workers echoes the broadside reportedly fired by Meta at its employees on Monday in which the Facebook parent told managers to force out laggards who are “coasting” and “failing” the company as it grapples with slowing revenue growth and the increasing threat of a recession.
