Google to Lay Off 10,000 Employees Based on Performance: Report

It is lay off season. After tech giants Twitter, Meta and Amazon resorting to large scale lay offs, now tech behemoth Google is planning to implement a performance improvement plan that will eventually lead to layoffs of 10,000 employees. According to a LiveMint report, Hedge fund billionaire, Christopher Hohn, has written a letter to Google parent company – Alphabet advising to cut the number of employees in the company. The UK investor has also reportedly said that the company pays excessively to its employees as compared with other digital companies, the LiveMint report said.

Google has asked its managers single out 6% of staff, or 10,000 employees, who according to then are poor performers. In an earlier notice, supervisors were directed to cut down the inflated scores. Apart from using it to trim the workforce, tech giant’s managers could also employ the performance ratings to lower the perks like bonuses and stocks- offered to employees.

The decision is said to be taken after pressure from an activist hedge fund coupled by market slump requiring cost cutting measures.

Hohn holds that the company’s headcount is “excessive” as compared to historical hiring patterns and does not meet the current business situation. He contends Google can be adequately administered with many fewer highly compensated professionals, report added.

Earlier this month, tech and e-commerce giant Amazon announced that the company would let go of 10,000 employees globally.

Tech giant Meta, the parent company Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp too had announced it will lay off 11, 000 employees or around 13 percent of the company’s total staff.

Twitter gave the pink slip to nearly two-thirds of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce in three weeks.