In layoff season, Google may fire 10,000 ‘low performing’ employees

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is likely to join the list of Big Tech companies going for large-scale layoffs. With this, almost the entire universe of FAANG – acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google – has now come under the layoff turbulence hitting tens of thousands of tech jobs around the world.

Reports surfaced on Tuesday about the Mountain View (California)-headquartered tech giant planning to fire around 10,000 employees. This follows unprecedented job cuts at Meta (Facebook), Amazon and Twitter. Apple has already announced a hiring freeze, while Netflix fired about 450 employees in two rounds earlier this year.

The layoff at Alphabet is part of performance improvement plan that the company announced earlier this year. According to a report by The Information, a San Francisco-based business publication, managers have been asked to categorize 6 per cent of its employees, or roughly a total of 10,000 as low performers.

The company did not comment on the report and the India impact of the likely layoff at Google (Alphabet) could not be independently verified. In India, Google has a total employee base of around 5000-6000. The company had announced in 2020 that it would invest $10 billion to accelerate the adoption of digital technologies in the country.

The news on layoff at Google has come within days of a letter that hedge fund TCI, an investor in the company, wrote to Alphabet. TCI has shares worth $6 billion in Alphabet.