Google sends hiring warning; layoffs in offing? Sundar Pichai says this- read the full memo

In a shocking move, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed to the employees that the company will be entering a phase of hiring slowdown. This sudden move comes as multiple tech companies are undergoing layoffs and hiring pauses, with the most recent to join the list being Twitter which fired 100 HR employees. This has triggered fear that Google layoffs may be in the offing. However, according to the memo, hirings will not be entirely frozen and instead the company will be focusing its resources to the higher priority areas. It remains to be seen whether the hiring slowdown will be followed up with layoffs for the company.

The Verge obtained the internal memo which highlighted that the company will still be continuing its hirings in areas such as engineering, technical and other critical roles. Pichai admitted that this will result in pausing of the ongoing development process and the company will be reassessing where to re-deploy the resources. Find the full internal memo below.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai warns employees about hiring slowdown

Hi Googlers,

Hard to believe we’re already through the first half of 2022. It’s the right opportunity to thank everyone for the great work so far this year, and to share how my Leads and I are thinking about H2.

The uncertain global economic outlook has been top of mind. Like all companies, we’re not immune to economic headwinds. Something I cherish about our culture is that we’ve never viewed these types of challenges as obstacles. Instead, we’ve seen them as opportunities to deepen our focus and invest for the long term.

In these moments, I turn to our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. It’s what inspired me to join the company 18 years ago, and what makes me so optimistic about the impact we are able to have on the world. Knowledge and computing are how we drive our mission forward. That’s the lens we use to decide where to invest — whether it’s in areas like Search, Cloud, YouTube, Platforms and Hardware, the teams that support them, or in the AI that enables more helpful products and services.

We help people and society when we focus on what we do best, and do it really well. The investments we’ve made in the first half of the year reflect this vision. In Q2 alone, we added approximately 10,000 Googlers, and have a strong number of commitments for Q3 start dates which reflects, in part, the seasonal college recruiting calendar. These are extraordinary numbers, and they show our excitement about long-term opportunities, even in uncertain times.

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. For the balance of 2022 and 2023, we’ll focus our hiring on engineering, technical and other critical roles, and make sure the great talent we do hire is aligned with our long-term priorities.

Moving forward, we need to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days. In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes. In other cases, that means pausing development and re-deploying resources to higher priority areas. Making the company more efficient is up to all of us — we’ll be creating more ways for you all to engage and share ideas to help, so stay tuned.

Scarcity breeds clarity — this is something we have been saying since the earliest days of Google. It’s what drives focus and creativity that ultimately leads to better products that help people all over the world. That’s the opportunity in front of us today, and I’m excited for us to rise to the moment again.

—Sundar