To brace for the economic downturn caused by the current global pandemic, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has just announced that recruiting for the remainder of the year would be “significantly late” It is part of the wider cost-cutting steps taken by the firm, as outlined by Sundar Pichai in a memo received by Bloomberg.
The memo says:
We are reevaluating the pace of our investment plans for the remainder of 2020. That starts with taking a more critical look at the pace of hiring for the rest of the year. For context, we hired 20,000 Googlers in 2019 and had been targeting a similar number for 2020. […] We believe now is the time to significantly slow down the pace of hiring, while maintaining momentum in a small number of strategic areas where users and businesses rely on Google for ongoing support, and where our growth is critical to their success. By dialing back our plans in other areas, we can ensure Google emerges from this year at a more appropriate size and scale than we would otherwise.
In view of the ongoing economic uncertainty created by the global economic situation, the organization is focusing on this. Google isn’t the only major tech business due to the pandemic to reduce recruiting. Microsoft declared a moratorium on recruiting just a few days before Alphabet’s launch.
About 22 million people in the US have applied for unemployment over the past few weeks alone. Before it gets better, the situation is likely to get worse. More and more companies are opting to employ freeze and layoffs to keep alive.
To read Sundar Pichai’s full memo to employees, see Bloomberg.