Google To Slow Hiring Through 2023 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Google parent Alphabet will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees on Tuesday. "Like all companies, we're not immune to economic headwinds," Pichai wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. "We need to be more entrepreneurial working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we've shown on sunnier days." He started by acknowledging that "the uncertain global economic outlook has been top of mind."
Alphabet shares are down 21% so far this year, falling alongside the rest of the tech industry as investors rotate out of the stocks that drove the bull market of the past decade. The company missed analyst estimates for the first quarter, and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat warned another rough period could be ahead. Growth in the first quarter slowed to 23% from a year earlier, down from 34% growth in the first three months of 2021, when the economy was reopening from the pandemic. Still, Pichai said in the letter that the company has hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter. "Because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we'll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities," he wrote. "For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles."
Google, which has historically invested heavily in research and development, will also be more particular about where it spends money during this period of economic uncertainty. "In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes," Pichai wrote. In other instances, it will mean "pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas," he said. Pichai ended the note by telling employees that "scarcity breeds clarity" and emphasizing that "I'm excited for us to rise to the moment again."
Alphabet shares are down 21% so far this year, falling alongside the rest of the tech industry as investors rotate out of the stocks that drove the bull market of the past decade. The company missed analyst estimates for the first quarter, and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat warned another rough period could be ahead. Growth in the first quarter slowed to 23% from a year earlier, down from 34% growth in the first three months of 2021, when the economy was reopening from the pandemic. Still, Pichai said in the letter that the company has hired 10,000 employees in the second quarter. "Because of the hiring progress achieved so far this year, we'll be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year, while still supporting our most important opportunities," he wrote. "For the balance of 2022 and 2023, the company will focus on hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles."
Google, which has historically invested heavily in research and development, will also be more particular about where it spends money during this period of economic uncertainty. "In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes," Pichai wrote. In other instances, it will mean "pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas," he said. Pichai ended the note by telling employees that "scarcity breeds clarity" and emphasizing that "I'm excited for us to rise to the moment again."
They must see something on the horizon (Score:3)
When a company that has a low PE ratio and shares trading at over $2200 today says they're slowing down, that's a good sign we should all be cautious. Yes their stock is off over $1000/share with this market/inflation correction but still, they're making bank.
Re: (Score:2)
When a company that has a low PE ratio and shares trading at over $2200 today says they're slowing down, that's a good sign we should all be cautious. Yes their stock is off over $1000/share with this market/inflation correction but still, they're making bank.
There's a huge difference between the interests of the corporation and the interests of the individuals who are decision makers. The corporation should be interested in near and far-term profits and market share. The individuals care almost solely about stock price appreciation. Sometimes those interest coincide, many times they do not, and sometimes those interests clash.
This is why the fed raised interest rates (Score:5, Informative)
In our current system the solution to inflation is always to make everyone work harder for less. Longer hours and lower pay leading to higher productivity.
Back in the day we used to increase productivity AND wages. Productivity is still going up, but Wall Street is still trying to balance the books on your back and mine. There are other ways, if anyone's interested.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of companies are betting that hybrid or WFH positions will net them a 30 to 50 percent reduction in wage costs. They're going to be shocked when they realize that people will not work for them for half of what they were making before just to save a commute.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it will, at least in some cases. Not by lowering wages, but by not having to have offices or a lot less of them. On the employee-side, there is no or only a rare commute. And on all sides, there is now the possibility to hire people from anywhere, which has good and bad sides. Sure, the "sysadmin" from India is cheaper, but cultural differences and standards make that one a lot more expensive, when, e.g. retrieving a log now takes 2 weeks and you better tell the "admin" how to find and copy a file
Re: (Score:2)
Well, most of this is obvious; I mean we haven't just started outsourcing with the pandemic. The major impact I fear is going to be companies trying to cut salaries for WFH/Hybrid folks already on payroll. Much less finding new talent who are willing to work for a company with those policies. Yes, outsourcing or "right shoring" as one of my former CIOs called it is an always prevalent model and yes, getting support can be a PITA.
To your other point, yes, they'll have a bad brain-drain along with the loss of
Re: (Score:2)
To your other point, yes, they'll have a bad brain-drain along with the loss of the tribal knowledge along with it all to save a few Sheckles.
Yes, always the same stupid approach. And you are right, it is not only the better workers that have alternatives, it is also the "tribal knowledge", which will be distributed over all of them.
Re: (Score:2)
You pay me half as much, I'll work half as much. That's absolutely doable, no problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When Gas is getting low, ones tenancy is to actually hit the gas pedal harder, so they can get to the gas station sooner. Of course this uses more gas, and increases the chance you will run out of gas before you make it to the gas station. We are speeding up, not because it is the logical thing, but because we may be suffering from range anxiety, and just want to get to the gas station to relieve the anxiety.
Our personal instincts are heavily affected by emotion, this holds true to our spending habits, and
Re: (Score:2)
"Nonfarm labor productivity in the US fell an annualized 7.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022, below earlier estimates of a 7.5 percent drop and following a 6.3 percent rise in the previous period. It was the steepest decrease in productivity since the third quarter of 1947, as output fell by 2.4 percent and hours worked rose by 5.4 per
Re: (Score:1)
Killing the 4 day workweek (Score:2)
Hungry (Score:2)
Nothing makes me want to punch a CEO in the face like using the word hungry.
Re: (Score:2)
You need a reason for that? Really?
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent and GP funny. Also sad but true.
But as regards the Subject, they really are starving in the worst way. The CxOs (corporate leaders, quite often sociopaths) who control the giant corporate cancers (like the google) really are starving for more money--but no amount of money will cure their hunger. Nor abate nor diminish. They can always imagine a bigger number to chase after. Can't you feel their suffering? They NEED more money!
Now what about the hungry peasants like you and me? That's different. A
Wealth Over Time (Score:2)
Re: Wealth Over Time (Score:2)
An economy is a mechanism for incenting producers to produce needed goods and services
No it's not, an economy determines how scarce resources are distributed. It does not and is not intended to incentivize work.
The new bandwagon... (Score:3)
The new bandwagon in high-tech is "slowing hiring" and lay-offs or "re-alignments." But yet many of the tech giants are still making big profits, yet to please Wall Street they cut to keep their stock up, and give the impression "we're in tune with the times" of greater inflation, approaching stagflation. All the economists and financial advisors are saying "The sky is falling...cut people, lay-off, slow hiring, freeze job reqs, etc." The end result will be cutting staff and then finding themselves having cut off their nose to spite their face. :( And a side-effect will be less majors in software engineer, computer science...no jobs to bed had.
Josh K.
Re: (Score:2)
The new bandwagon in high-tech is "slowing hiring" and lay-offs or "re-alignments." But yet many of the tech giants are still making big profits, yet to please Wall Street they cut to keep their stock up, and give the impression "we're in tune with the times" of greater inflation, approaching stagflation. All the economists and financial advisors are saying "The sky is falling...cut people, lay-off, slow hiring, freeze job reqs, etc." The end result will be cutting staff and then finding themselves having cut off their nose to spite their face. :( And a side-effect will be less majors in software engineer, computer science...no jobs to bed had.
Josh K.
This all seems to be the same mentality that led to JIT manufacturing and all of the supply shortages during COVID. We want to make sure we show record profits each quarter to please wall street. We don't want to have sufficient money to invest into improving and increasing profitability consistently over ten years. Spend that cash now to show greater profits. Don't have cash, spend your other resources like your employees.
Sure this looks good to increase the value to wallstreet, but maximizing today's
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. I remember "Just in time" and "lean manufacturing" were the new, new thing. Yes decreasing costs on the books in the short-term looks good, and boosts the stock price. In the book "The Man Who Broke Capitalism" about Jack Welch, explores this short-term fixation. But managers want their performance bonuses before they move on. Long-term vision is this profit quarter. In short, I concur. It seems after the '80's reaganomics, this mentality set in on the facade of profit.
AT&T had Bell Labs which i
Recession is coming, so may stagflation (Score:3)
It was quite obvious last year that whoever who said inflation was short or temporary were lying. Now those same people are telling us recession is not a sure thing. Yeah, fool me once....
It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, everyone who paid attention knew the train is going to crash, and now we have only just saw the first half of it. The only thing not so sure is how long this recession will last, and will it become a stagflation and how bad it will be.
Interesting times, indeed.
Time to stop creating redundant apps to cancel? (Score:3)
For example, creating Google Music, which I LOVED and most people seemed to at least like, but then they create YouTube Music?...which honestly I don't know anyone who likes...so now Google Music is canceled and we have YouTube music, which is a total f-ing mess. There's a long list of popular canceled Google apps: reader, wave, etc.
I still use YTM because I pay for YouTube Red because my kids love YouTube and we want to reduce how many commercials they watch, but I HATE it...not enough to pay a lot of money to get 2 streaming services, but dislike it and clench my asshole everytime that horrid welcome screen loads, with its terrible recommendations.
I still don't know which is their official chat platform these days. It seems to change every year. I just know all of my friends have moved off it to a platform with better features. I think they're the only one that doesn't let you edit sent messages with iMessages announcing support for that.
I have many friends at Google and it's more like an adult-daycare or fraternity than a real business. While I am jealous they get free gourmet food every day, I also think that maybe a nap room isn't something a serious business needs. My office tried to be cool and created a media room with game consoles...their answer to that trend that caught fire after Google did it. I have NEVER seen anyone play a video game at work. It's stupid. I have an XBox at home. I can relax and play and focus on the game at home knowing my boss won't walk by and hold it against me if my next task is late. If I were a manager, I wouldn't want my employees staying after supper and having fun in the office...go get a life, this is not your home. This is a place to do serious work and leave once it's done. Staying in the office for 12h just means you're doing 6h of productive work, at best, and 6h of mediocre to no work...and building resentment because the office is your prison. If you need naps, be a fucking adult and drink some coffee now and go to bed earlier tonight.
Little about the Google and Silicon Valley infantalization of employees made any sense to me. Any time I mention this to people, their response was unanimous "Shut the Fuck Up...they're GOOGLE. They "invented" gmail, Android, Chrome, Google Search, etc....who the fuck are you?...you're just jealous of their success. They clearly know more about running a tech company than you."...and that may very well be 100% true, but....
On a similar note, sometimes management has to say "no" to redundant apps. You want to make a video calling app, like Duo, that's completely redundant with whatever they're calling GChat, Google Meet, etc? Sorry buddy, no. You can join those teams and contribute your good ideas. You may be able to prototype it, but we're not going to devote resources to parallel redundant products. It dilutes our brand and confuses our customers.
Who knows?...if things get bad enough, maybe Google will actually care about what the customer wants and scrap hated projects like YouTube Music and make it a bearable experience. I used to admire their landscape. Now I find it mostly pointless.
Re: (Score:2)
I had to stop reading at the second paragraph. You apparently hate youtube music....but then you USE youtube music. Instead of taking your money and eyeballs and consumption elsewhere, you continue to provide positive statistics to the beancounters who track youtube music usage. Ergo, you are the problem of your own creation. What's flabbergasting is that you further entrench your HOUSEHOLD into this hatred because you PAY for youtube red. Alarm bells are going off, Willy.
Google knows exactly what they a
Google products are redundant, confusing, wasteful (Score:2)
I had to stop reading at the second paragraph.
The post was too tedious to read, but you need to spend
Re: Time to stop creating redundant apps to cancel (Score:2)
I am with you on YouTube music vs Google music. The former sucks.
I have used the nap pods at Google and found them useful.
Video game room IMO is a great idea, but not a novel one. We had had that pretty much at every company I worked at in the mid-to-late 1990s. And up to around 2005. We played multi player games in person, with all the wired controllersno less. And largest CRT, or projector. This was an almost daily thing. A large part of the team was participating. I would say having those breaks was a h