“If the light turns red, you are fired”: Google’s lay offs remind us of Squid Games – Times of India

A LinkedIn user, Chris Donnelly shared a post where he pointed out how the employees of Google in New York were laid off. He shared how the employees had to wait in a line to test their access passes and if the pass turned green, they would be allowed in the office. And if it turned red, it meant that they were laid off.

Chris shared, “This isn’t Squid game. This is real life. Google employees, who arrived at the New York office on Friday morning, stood in a line to test their passes. If it turned green you were allowed in, if it turned red, you had been laid off. Their emails had been shut off, so they didn’t know they’d been laid off. The repercussions for Google’s employer brand will be long lasting.”

The post has since gotten over a thousand likes with people commenting about how astonishing it was, to deal with such a situation at hand.

Google announced last Friday that the company will be cutting 6 per cent of its work force. Around 12,000 jobs of employees will be impacted. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the layoffs to redirect the giant’s cost base. Pichai said, “as an almost 25-year-old company, we’re bound to go through difficult economic cycles. These are important moments to sharpen our focus, re-engineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities.”

Pichai also seemed to take ‘full responsibility’ for the layoff. He mentioned that the company will be supporting its employees during this difficult period. The impacted employees in the US will be getting full salary for their notice period, a severance package starting at 16 weeks’ salary plus two weeks for every additional year at the company, and bonuses and other benefits as per their respective contracts.

The employees residing outside the US will be compensated as per their country’s laws.