LONDON: Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to staff this week that the company plans to slow hiring for the rest of the year, according to Bloomberg.
He added that it will focus on hiring engineering, technical and “other critical roles” in 2022 and 2023.
Pichai also encouraged employees “to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days.”
In some cases, that means “consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes,” he said.
Google is not the only tech giant planning to slow down. After witnessing accelerated growth during the pandemic, many tech companies are seeing a slowdown in both growth and revenue.
Earlier this year, Twitter announced it would freeze hiring and last week laid off 30 percent of its recruitment team, according to media reports.
Facebook, which is down 40 percent this year, told its employees in May that it would freeze hiring, according to The Washington Post.
Now, it is looking to weed out poor performers. Facebook’s head of engineering, Maher Saba, sent a memo on Friday to managers asking them to identify those on their team who “need support” and report them to the HR department by Monday, according to The Information.
In a memo, Saba said: “If a direct report is coasting or a low performer, they are not who we need; they are failing this company,” he said.
“As a manager, you cannot allow someone to be net neutral or negative for Meta.”
The announcement follows the tone set by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month. “I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is OK with me,” he said.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” he added.
