Google pauses hiring for 2 weeks; contract extensions in jeopardy
Google has put a halt on its hiring for two weeks. The new announcement comes after the company said last week that it was slowing down the recruitment process. The two weeks will be used to review its headcount and decide on future staffing requests. The freeze will not affect offers already made but would put future contract extensions in jeopardy.
Why does this story matter?
This year has not been particularly good for tech companies. From a pandemic-induced high over the last two years to free-falling share prices, they have had a hard time. Add to that, the fear of an impending recession. It seems that Google is feeling the effect as well. If the unfavorable conditions continue, we will certainly see more such decisions from tech giants.
Google won't make any new offers
Google's decision to pause hiring was announced in an email sent to employees by Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President at Google. He wrote, "We'll use this time to review our headcount needs and align on a new set of prioritized staffing requests for the next three months." The freeze will not affect existing job offers. However, the company will not make new ones.
The company hired 10,000 people in Q2
The decision to pause hiring is in line with Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai's internal memo last week. He had stated that the company already hired 10,000 workers in Q2 and that it is looking to be "more entrepreneurial" for the rest of the year. According to him, that would involve consolidating overlapping investments, streamlining processes, and deploying resources to high-priority areas.
Pichai announced a slowdown in recruitment
"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," said Pichai.
The current macroeconomic storm has forced Google's hands
Google, like other tech giants, is wary of the current macroeconomic climate. Inflation, the Russia-Ukraine situation, and the pandemic that does not seem to go away have created a fear of recession among companies. "Like all companies, we're not immune to economic headwinds," said Pichai in his internal memo. The hiring freeze and the headcount review can be seen in this light.
Other companies are laying off employees
Google is not the only big tech company to choose the path of a hiring freeze. Meta had announced the same in May for specific teams. Others like Substack, Tesla, and Netflix went further by laying off employees to tackle the storm.
